UMass Lowell wins second annual Adirondack Winter Invitational tourney
LAKE PLACID — The University of Massachusetts Lowell senior Stefan Owens netted the game-winning goal in the eighth round of a shootout, helping his team win the second annual Adirondack Winter Invitational Saturday against the Clarkson Golden Knights at 1980 Herb Brooks Arena.
“I don’t even know what round it was … I think it was seven or eight or something,” Owens said. “I kind of just tried to wait him out a bit and didn’t try to do anything fancy.”
Owens made a slight move that caused Clarkson’s goalie Ethan Langenegger to go down, which allowed Owens to cut to the right side of the net and bury the puck above Langenegger’s glove.
“I planned on shooting originally, but he kind of bit on the first one, and I just kept going and it went in,” Owens said.
The win, along with the UMass Lowell River Hawks’ 2-0 victory over the St. Lawrence University Saints on Friday, secured the tournament title based on a points system. The tournament was determined by a fifth tie-breaking procedure — total periods won — according to a Clarkson hockey staffer.
“Our goal was to obviously win the tournament, and we achieved that,” Owens said. “All week we were treating it like a playoff game. Coaches said treat it like an NCAA tournament game, and I thought we did a good job of that.”
The Providence College Friars, which finished as the tournament runner-ups, also won their two contests. The Friars defeated St. Lawrence 2-1 on Saturday and earned a 3-2 overtime victory on Friday over the Golden Knights.
UMass Lowell had strong contributions from Mirko Buttazzoni during Saturday’s tournament finale, as the freshman netted a goal and an assist in the win. Teammates Connor Eddy, Matt Crasa and Owen Cole also scored.
The two-game efforts helped improve the River Hawks, which rank 16th in the NCAA Division I hockey polls, according to USCHO.com, to 10-3-1 overall. The No. 19 Golden Knights fell to 9-5-2 on the season.
UMass Lowell opened up the scoring on Saturday with a goal less than 20 seconds left in the opening period when Eddy netted a pass from Jak Vaarwerk. However, the Golden Knights responded 10 seconds later when Ryan Richardson buried Ellis Rickwood’s pass.
Both teams scored two goals apiece in the second period to remain tied, with neither squad leading by more than one at any point. Clarkson’s Ray Fust broke the tie halfway through the period before Buttazzoni responded just 17 seconds later on a breakaway.
Crasa gave the River Hawks the lead less than two minutes later. However, Richardson netted his second goal for the Golden Knights to even the scoring at 3-3 with 4:09 remaining in the second.
In the third period, UMass Lowell’s Cole broke the tie at the 10:25 mark. But yet again, Clarkson responded when Rickwood scored with just over five minutes remaining.
After a scoreless overtime, both teams traded goals and a lot more saves in the shootout before Cole finally buried one past Langenegger in the seventh round. And following a stop by River Hawks goalie Henry Welsch, Owens secured the victory.
“All game it was kind of back-and-forth, momentum shifts,” Owens said. “I don’t think we ever stopped believing in ourselves. Hank (Welsch) is always reliable and our D is always reliable.”
Welsch finished with 20 saves in the win, while Langenegger had 23. UMass Lowell had a 27-24 edge in shots.
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Providence 2, St. Lawrence 1
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John Mustard scored with 8:51 remaining in the third period to lead his Providence College team to a 2-1 victory over St. Lawrence on Saturday.
Tanner Adams also scored for the Friars, while goalkeeper Zachary Borgiel turned away 19 shots in the win. Tyler Cristall scored the lone goal for the Saints.
With the win, along with Friday’s nailbiting overtime victory over Clarkson, the 10th-ranked Providence College moves to 10-3-2 overall, while the unranked Saints drop to 4-11 overall.
“It was an OK game in the first one, but we gutted it out and found a way to win,” Friars’ forward and assistant captain Guillaume Richard said. “The same thing today. Better performance for us, but there were a lot of things against us that didn’t go our way.”
Providence outshot the Saints 35-20 in the game, but seemingly struggled to find the back of the net, apart from Adams’ first-period goal when he buried a rebound past St. Lawrence’s goalie Dominic Basse.
“We couldn’t find the back of the net, but we stuck with it and we managed to get that win,” Richard said.
While trailing by one, Cristall evened the game for the Saints on a shot from the top of the left-wing circle, and through a screen in the second period.
Mustard’s goal around the halfway point of the final period — on a pass from Adams — was ultimately enough to secure the victory. Basse made 28 saves for St. Lawrence.
“Our message in the locker room was to just stay with it because we knew we were doing something good,” Richard said. “We weren’t surprised that we gutted one out in overtime, and then got a third-period goal because third periods have been good for us so far.”
While the Friars didn’t earn the tournament’s trophy, Richard said the team accomplished its goals this weekend.
“We came here for two wins, and we managed to do that,” he said. “You’ve got to be happy with that.”