It’s only the first weekend of November and the UMass hockey team already has several statement wins. The Minutemen picked up another one on Saturday as the won in Durham, N.H. for the first time in a dozen years with a 5-1 victory over the University of New Hampshire in Hockey East play.

The victory was the first by UMass on the road against UNH since 2006 and helped the Minutemen improve to 6-1-0 overall, their best start since 2009-10. The 11th-ranked Minutemen added the statement win over the Wildcats to a resume that includes a win over previous No. 1 Ohio State, as well as a weekend sweep of Merrimack last weekend that has the Minutemen at 3-0-0 in Hockey East.

“I really like my hockey club,” said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. “I think we came in here tonight and we wanted to try and frustrate UNH and I thought, through the first period, we were doing a real good job of that. It’s tough to win on the road in this league and UNH is a skilled team with speed. I thought we did a good job limiting their skill and their speed and their power play was something else I was worried about, our kill did a good job tonight.”

UMass jumped out to a fast start as sophomore Mitchell Chaffee opened the scoring 7 minutes, 19 seconds into the first period with his team-leading sixth goal of the season off assists from Oliver Chau and Marc Del Gaizo. The Minutemen doubled the lead nearly seven minutes later when UMass hit the Wildcats on the counter, as Jacob Pritchard and John Leonard quickly worked the puck up ice to Phillip Lagunov, and the sophomore slid the puck home for a 2-0 lead after one period. UMass also killed off a lengthy 5-on-3 power play in the first period and held UNH to 0-for-3 on the power play on the night, running UMass’ string of successful kills to 16.

Sophomore Cale Makar struck for the only goal of the second period just past the midway point as he netted his fourth of the year on assists from Chaffee and Jake Gaudet. Leonard added to the lead with a power play 12:22 into the third off feeds from Makar and Chaffee. 

UMass goalie Matt Murray had his shutout bid spoiled with 1:04 to play as Kohei Sato scored for UNH, but UMass responded with 29 second to play as Pritchard scored from Leonard and Ivan Chukarov.

Murray finished with 19 saves to run his record to 4-0-0 on the year. Mike Robinson stopped 17 shots in the loss. UMass hosts No. 3-ranked Providence Thursday night at 7 at the Mullins Center.

Ballou, Smith make history

Deerfield’s Anna Ballou and the Smith College field hockey team made history on Saturday.

Alex Larosee scored 2 minutes, 38 seconds into overtime to help the host Pioneers beat MIT, 2-1, to capture the program’s first NEWMAC Tournament Championship Saturday.

Smith (14-7) was the third seed in the tournament.

The Pioneers tied the game with less than two minutes remaining in regulation. On the team’s fifth penalty corner, Beatrice Chaudoin took the initial pass at the top of the circle and found Sammie Pavlov, who scored her 11th tally of the season with 1:17 left.

With 38 seconds left, Ballou had a chance to win the game for Smith, but her uncontested shot went wide of the net.

Channy Cornell finished with five saves, including back-to-back stops on an MIT corner early in overtime.

Chaudoin was named the tournament’s most outstanding player.