CANTON, N.Y. – Fredonia men's hockey completed its weekend sweep of SUNY Canton, and this time without last-second heroics.
Bobby Polachek gave Fredonia the lead 58 seconds into Saturday's rematch and the Blue Devils never looked back en route a 5-2 non-conference road win.
Samuel Wilbur (Saginaw, Mich.) had two goals while
Sean Leonard (Rockaway Park, N.Y.), and
Mac McAvoy (Port Colborne, Ont.) had one goal each as the Blue Devils improved to 11-8-2, including a 5-4 win over the Kangaroos on Friday decided on a goal by
Oskar Gerhardson (Haessleholm, Sweden) with 1.5 seconds left.
Anton Rosen (Orsa, Sweden) made 33 saves for Fredonia. He was the winning goaltender in both games on the roadtrip.
Fredonia scored on the second shift of the game.
Hunter Long (Lebanon, Tenn.) skated over the blue line and dropped a pass back to Polachek at the right circle. Polacek's snap shot deflected off the skate of a Canton defenseman into the right corner of the net.
Leonard made it 2-0 with a shot from the left circle after
Marcus Ortiz (Richardson, Texas) misfired from the opposite wing and the puck bounced off the end boards. It was the first collegiate goal by Leonard, a first-year defenseman.
Wilbur's first goal of the game came on a power play on a deflection of a shot from the left point by Ortiz preceded by a dot-to-dot pass from Bengamin Casale (Lewiston, N.Y.).
Rosen was perfect until 8:58 remained when, following a Blue Devil turnover, Joe Deveny scored from a wide angle right. Wilbur got the goal back when he converted a 3-on-2 rush on a give-and-go with
Jacob Haynes (Whitby, Ont.). It was Wilbur's 10
th goal of the season, tying Haynes for the team lead.
Jamie Young (Russell, Ohio) was credited with the second assist.
An unassisted goal by
Mac McAvoy (Port Colborne, Ont.) into an empty net put Fredonia back up by four, 5-1, with just under three minutes left. Rosen then turned the puck over behind the net and Canton's Trenton Yule converted with a slapshot from the right point.
Saturday's game concluded the non-conference portion of Fredonia's season. The Blue Devils close out the home portion Friday vs. Geneseo, the first of four straight SUNYAC games. The Blue Devils, currently fifth in the conference, travel to Brockport next Saturday, then finish with road games Feb. 17 at Oswego and Feb. 18 at Cortland.
The top six teams qualify for the SUNYAC tournament.