Crowell’s hat trick leads men’s hockey to 10th straight win

The RIT Tigers men’s hockey team (15-9-1, 14-4-1 AHA) made it 10 straight victories as Matt Crowell recorded his first collegiate hat trick, leading the Tigers to a 5-2 win over Canisius College (9-9-4, 7-7-2 AHA) in front of 934 fans at Buffalo State Ice Arena on Thursday evening.

Crowell scored his 12th, 13th and 14th goals of the season to lead RIT. He opened the scoring 37 seconds into the game, gave RIT a 3-1 lead early in the second period and salted the game away with an empty-net goal with seven seconds left. He now has 10 goals in his last seven games and a 10-game point-scoring streak with 17 points during that span.

Anton Kharin had a goal and an assist, while Andrew Favot dished out two assists. Favot now has a 10-game point-scoring streak, with three goals and 12 assists for 15 points. Trevor Eckenswiller added his first collegiate goal in the win for the Tigers.

Jared DeMichiel stopped 21 of 23 shots to pick up his 10th win of the season.

RIT outshot Canisius 36-24. Andrew Loewen made three saves for Canisius before being pulled in the first period. Dan Morrison stopped 28 shots in relief.

The Tigers have outscored their opponents 49-24 during their winning streak. They have scored at least five goals in five straight games.

RIT Head Coach Wayne Wilson was happy to get off to a quick start.

“Getting two early goals was to our advantage,” says Wilson. “Anytime you score first on the road is a big advantage.”

RIT battled penalty problems in the second period but killed off four Canisius power plays over the first 12 minutes. Wilson was pleased with his team’s penalty killing and effort.

“We played well,” Wilson says. “Our penalty killing was good, but we took too many penalties. We don’t want to waste all our energy killing penalties. We got through their power plays and it deflated them a bit.”

RIT leads the all-time series between the two teams 46-14-1. Last season, the squads split four contests, with each team winning on home ice. RIT won both games at Ritter Arena, 4-3 and 4-1, while Canisius tallied two victories at Buffalo State Ice Arena, 6-2 and 5-4.

The Tigers are now 14-1-0 this season when leading or tied after two periods of play. RIT has scored 49 goals during its 10-game home winning streak.

RIT and Canisius will complete the weekend series at 4:05 p.m. Sunday at Buffalo State Ice Arena. The game can be heard on WITR-FM (89.7). Also, the “WITR Men’s Hockey Postgame Rewind” can be found on the RIT University News home page.

For more, visit RIT Athletics.