D-III Men’s Opening Weekend in Review: The Spartans are back? Some upsets, & a Top-5 matchup in Adrian!

We’re back… it’s another season of Division III hockey and we’ll go over a brief review of the weekend for the Men’s side of things. As this website has come together and exciting things have been happening, we’ve got time for a brief review of opening weekend with another exciting weekend ahead. 

The Spartans win the Key City Collegiate Classic, hosted by Univ. of Dubuque.

Aurora’s coming off a season which for them, would be considered a down year, finishing 15-12-1, falling to Adrian in the NCHA tournament. Well, they showed their true abilities this past weekend as they rolled vs #6 UW-Stevens Point 7-2 and then defeated Augsburg 5-4 in OT to win a pair of games and come home with some early-season hardware.

Aurora vs #6 UW-Stevens Point

Aurora got it going quickly and didn’t let off the gas, taking a 6-0 lead through two periods until the Pointers scored a late one to make it 6-1 through two periods. Aurora’s Matt Weber opened up the scoring at 12:30 of the 1st period, then Riley Dekowny doubled the lead, scoring with less than two minutes left in the 1st. The Spartans would then score two goals in less than a minute (2:07, 2:40) to double the lead and go up 4-0. 

As mentioned, the Pointers would get a few back, making it 6-2, but Eddie Paulissian scored on the powerplay with less than 15 seconds left in the game (19:45.7) to ice the game and the Spartans rolled 7-2.

Aurora vs Augsburg

Aurora needed to work a little harder for their second win on the weekend, as they trailed 3-1 after two periods. The Spartans’ Chase Broda scored a brisk TEN seconds into the 3rd period, then Jacob Brockman tied it up four minutes later (4:11). Augsburg would grab the lead back midway through the period (12:22), but the Spartans came back in just about a minute (13:24) when Landry Schmuck tied it back up, to eventually send the game to overtime. 

Schmuck would score the winner in overtime a quick 37 seconds into the extra frame, sending the Spartans home a perfect 2-0-0 and a little hardware to go along with it. 

Aurora’s next games are this weekend vs Illinois-foe Lake Forest in a home/away series.

Early Upsets

Nazareth defeats #10 Elmira 2-1

Nazareth is coming off a season in which they’ll likely want to forget, finishing 6-18-2. They pulled off an upset-victory over an Elmira squad that’s trying to find itself early as even though it’s only the preseason, they dropped a game 3-1 vs the EHL All-Stars the week prior.

Nazareth got on the board early, Ethan Louisos (2:56) gave the Golden Flyers the early lead, Elmira would tie it (Seth Ferguson, 14:37, PP) to end the opening period. The lone remaining goal came from Andrew Miller (5:59) in the 2nd period which held on to give Nazareth a huge opening day victory in Head Coach George Roll’s final season (announced prior to season’s start). 

Nazareth’s Dylan Wiemer made 21 saves in the victory, Elmira’s Kyle Curtin made 25 saves in the slim-loss.

Southern Maine defeats #13 Endicott 3-2 OT

Head Coach Matt Pinchevsky enters his 2nd season with the Huskies, coming off a 10-14-3 season, which is the first time the Huskies won 10+ games since the ’11-’12 season. Well, he opened up his 2nd season with an overtime victory on the road vs a ranked Endicott squad who was in the Frozen Four just two seasons ago. 

An interesting fact, the first two goals of the game for each team came shorthanded and very early in their respective periods. USM’s Mathieu Sabourin scored shorthanded a rapid 1:20 into the game, while Endicott’s John Goldowski scored shorthanded in the opening minute of the middle frame (00:37) to tie it up at 1 a piece. 

Endicott would take the lead at the 13:51 mark of the 3rd period, while USM tied it up four minutes later (17:06) and sent the game to overtime. 

USM’s Nick Nault scored the winner in only 38 seconds (00:38) to send the Huskies back home undefeated to start the year. 

Univ. New England shuts-out #11 Plymouth State 5-0

UNE, led by Head Coach Kevin Swallow, who’s looking to get his Nor’Easter squad back into the Frozen Four as he did in ’22 & ’23 just got themselves a big win to start the year. Plymouth State, who’s been a familiar face for UNE come NCAA tournament time, is coming off their first-ever NCAA tournament victory last season as they defeated SUNY Cortland in the first-round. 

UNE scored a pair of goals in the first period and then a three-piece in the middle frame to lead 5-0 after two. The lead would stand and UNE goaltender Joey Stanizzi would pickup the 5-0 shutout victory.

Babson defeats #11 Plymouth State 5-4

Plymouth State unfortunately is featured twice in this ‘upsets’ section of the article, but this time it came at Babson. 

The Beavers of Babson get the opening weekend victory in a back-and-forth game. No scoring came until the 2nd period, but then it came early and often. Four goals were scored in the middle frame, it went to the 3rd period tied 2-2. 

Plymouth scored first at 2:39, but Babson would add a pair of goals quickly after, Sean Senier (2:57) a brief 18 seconds after Plymouth took the lead and Wyatt George (8:06). The Panthers would get one back late in the period at 18:39 to tie it up 4-4, but Babson’s Brendan Kennedy scored the late-winner at 19:56 to avoid overtime and get off to a good start.

Top-5 Weekend Series: #4 Utica vs #2 Adrian

Utica 3-2 & Adrian 5-3

It’s always a fun opening weekend when these two Frozen Four contenders (both made it last season) play each other. Longtime Utica Head Coach Gary Heenan is quite familiar with the Bulldogs, but now that former Adrian Head Coach Adam Krug is now an Assistant Coach with the Bakersfield Condors (AHL), Adam Phillips takes the reigns for his first game as Bulldogs HC, he won a National Championship with Adrian as an Assistant Coach in 2022. 

Utica took game one 3-2, you can read Scott Kinville’s full recap over at the CNYHockeyReport.com -LINK-. We’ll discuss Adrian’s victory the following day…

Adrian defeated Utica 5-3 on Sunday, splitting the weekend series, which was probably the likely result, a split between the top-ranked squads. 

In this game, Adrian took a quick 2-0 lead as Will Bowman (3:08) and Ian Amsbaugh (9:27 PP) in the 1st period, but Utica’s Ben Schultheis cut the lead in half later in the period (15:03). Utica would score a pair of goals in the 2nd, coming just over a minute apart (5:16 & 6:23) to take the 3-2 lead. 

Adrian would then score the final three goals of the game, scoring on the powerplay to end the 2nd, then scored midway through the 3rd, capped off by an empty-netter in the final 12 seconds. 

 

That’s it for your opening week recap! Here’s to another great season of Men’s Division III Hockey!