WESTFIELD, Mass. – Umass. Dartmouth freshman goaltender Daniel Davidson (Surrey, B.C) posted his third shutout in his last four appearances as the Corsairs defeated the Westfield State University Owls 4-0 on Tuesday night at Amelia Park in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) season finale.
With the win, Umass. Dartmouth earns the number-three seed in the MASCAC playoffs, while the Owls will take the number-four spot.
It was a goaltending battle through the first two periods, with both goalies coming up big in high-pressured moments. But the Corsairs would tack on four goals in the third to best the Owls.
UMass. Dartmouth applied heavy pressure early, garnering the first seven shots of the game.
As the Corsairs continued to push pace of play, Thierry Messervier (Montreal, Quebec) continued to come up big in net for the Owls, stopping all 22 shots faced in the frame. Perhaps his biggest save came with just under a minute remaining in the period, when he robbed Kai Kapossy (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) of a point-blank, one-timer opportunity to keep the game tied.
The second period saw more even play, but still the Corsairs held the majority of the true scoring chances.
Perhaps the best chance of the frame came from Michael Perrone (Mt. Sinai, N.Y.) who snuck behind the Owl defense and was able to walk in all alone against Messervier. Perrone hit the Owls' goaltender with a head fake and tried to pull the puck back to his forehand and slam it home, but Messervier sprawled to his left and made the save.
Davidson came up with his first big save of the night when he denied Danny Ferri (Chelmsford, Mass.) of a point-bank rebound opportunity with the glove with just over four minutes remaining in the stanza.
Momentum quickly shifted back to the Corsairs to begin the third due to a major penalty against the Owls at the end of the second period.
After a flurry of shots, Umass Dartmouth finally broke through on Steven Leonard's (Rockaway Park, N.Y.) 11th of the year. Sophomore Pat Twombly (Hull, Mass.) gathered the puck in the Corsair zone and gave it to Leonard who went the length of the ice, exchanged a give-and-go pass with Kai Kapossy, and finished off the 2-on-1 successfully to give Umass Dartmouth the 1-0 lead.
The Corsairs quickly netted another goal on the powerplay a little over a minute later, this time by the stick of Austin Miller (Meridian, Idaho). Miller took a feed from defenseman Jimmy Pelton (Syracuse, N.Y.) and sent a wrister into the back of the net from the slot to make it 2-0.
After that, it was all UMass Dartmouth, as Pelton added a goal of his own later in the period and Derek Britner (Salem, N.H.) capped off the scoring with an empty-netter to seal the 4-0 victory.
Davidson finished with 34 saves on the night to pick up his fourth win of the year and the shutout. Messervier fought valiantly, making 44 saves in the loss.
Westfield State will now face the number-five seed in the first round of the MASCAC tournament on Saturday at Amelia Park.
UMass. Dartmouth will host the number-six seed on Saturday as well.
The tournament bracket will be posted on the MASCAC website (MASCAC.com) in due time. For any tournament news regarding schedules and time changes, tune into westfieldstateowls.com .
Tonight, the Owls sported Orange and Blue jerseys to help support the fight to end hunger. Pictured below are all the canned goods and non-perishables raised by the Westfield State community at tonight's game.
