AMHERST, Mass. – The Northeastern men's ice hockey team (1-1-0, 0-1-0) scored in the first 65 seconds of the game only to see No. 19/18 Massachusetts (2-2-1, 1-0-0) respond with four unanswered goals to top the Huskies on Friday night at the Mullins Center, 4-1.
Miquel Marques scored his first in a Northeastern uniform in the loss, while
Lawton Zacher made 17 saves before leaving the game with an injury. UMass received two goals from Vaclav Nestrasil with Ethan Eskit making 27 stops.
Northeastern bolted out to a 1-0 lead less than two minutes into the game on Marques' first of the season. After taking a feed from
Tyler Fukakusa, Marques flew down the left side of the zone before rifling a shot under the glove of Eskit for the score.
The lead was short-lived, though, as the Minutemen knotted the score at one just 25 seconds later on Nestrasil's second of the year. The score remained that way until early in the second period when Massachusetts took its first lead of the night as Daniel Jencko redirected a shot from the point past Zacher to make it 2-1 three minutes into the frame.
UMass extended its lead to 3-1 two minutes into the third period on Gavin Cornforth's first collegiate tally when he spun around from behind the net and hammered home a loose puck in the crease.
Nestrasil put the game on ice midway through the third period when he intercepted a clearing attempt by the Huskies and went in alone on
Sam Caulfield, who replaced Zacher earlier in the frame, and beat him to make it 4-1.
The two teams will square off again in the weekend finale on Saturday afternoon at the Mullins Center. Puck drop is set for 5:30 p.m. on NESN and ESPN+.
