Talk about a heartbreaker.
The Amherst College hockey team battled back to tie Trinity College twice at Sunday’s NESCAC championship game in Hartford, but lost in overtime, 3-2. What made the loss improbable, frustrating and shocking was that the clock read zeros across when the winning goal was scored.
Playing on the Bantams’ home ice and with the clock ticking three, two, one, Taggart Corriveau floated inside the blue line with his stick raised, locked and loaded. Freshman Lucas Michaud fed a cross ice pass that Corriveau rifled past Amherst goalie Michael Cullen. The scoreboard clock showed triple zeros, but after a brief conference the referee ruled it a goal.
To make it official, somebody clicked the game clock to the lowest denominator, one-tenth or one-hundredth of a second. It didn’t matter because there’s no replay review in Division III hockey. The score stood and the celebration continued.
Cullen stopped 50 of 53 shots for Amherst (15-7-4), and Teddy Loughborough stopped 37 for the Bantams (19-3-5).
Corriveau is an example of what a Division I transfer can do for a D-III team. In two seasons at St. Lawrence University, the 6-foot-1, 170-pound New Britain native scored two goals in 25 games; his game-winner against Amherst was his 10th in 19 games (to go with five assists).
The conference playoffs boiled down to the usual suspects. On Saturday, Amherst beat favored Wesleyan in double overtime, and Trinity needed one OT to vanquish Hamilton.
By winning their fourth NESCAC title in five years, the Bantams are on a mission to win their second national championship in five years. The D-III playoff brackets will be announced Monday at 10:30 a.m.
Hockey East Tix on Sale at Mullins Center
Tickets for to see the UMass hockey playoffs at the Mullins Center are available online, by telephone or at the Mullins Center ticket office. The second-ranked Minutemen (26-7-0/18-5-0) will host a quarterfinal series at the Mullins Center in a best-of-three series.
Seats are $25 for reserved, $20 for general admission and $17 for youths 16-and-under. They can be purchased at the box office (no fees) or by phone (fees) and online (fees). Two reserved seats purchased online, for example, would cost $60.
All games will start at 7 p.m. and tickets for the Sunday, March 17 game will be refunded if a third game isn’t necessary. The box office is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.