2002 Season Review
9/11/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
April 1, 2002
FAIRFIELD, CT - For the first time since they joined the MAAC in 1998-99 season, the Pioneers hosted a league quarterfinals game at the Milford Ice Pavilion this year. The 2001-02 squad also tied a Pionner record for the most wins in a season with 16, a record held previously by the 1998-99 team.
Once again, junior forward Martin Paquet led the team in scoring with 35 points, and goals with 16. Right behind Paquet was assistant captain Lloyd Marks with 29 points. Marks led the team in assists with 20. Both Pioneers reached the 100 point mark this season, Marks did it on January 25, 2002 against Holy Cross. He ends his career with Sacred Heart holding the second place slot in the record book with 109 points. Paquet stands at 101, scoring his 100th on March 9th against Canisius.
Six seperate Pioneers were awarded ITECH-MAAC weekly honors during the season. Marks, Paquet and sophomore Marc-Andre Fournier were named Player of the Week. Junior Eddy Ferhi was given Goaltender of the Week honors twice, freshman Kevin LaPointe was GOW once. Earning Rookie of the Week was Garrett Larson. Ferhi and Paquet were placed on the All-MAAC second team post-season and the Pionners boasted eight players on the All-MAAC Academic Team (Ferhi, Fournier, McRae, Metcalfe, Naumann, Paquet, Sposito, Tennant).
Sacred Heart faced Big East power University of Maine early in the season, skating to a 4-4 tie on November 11th. The team went on to match up against Alambama-Huntsvile and Western Michigan in late November , losing all four close games. The Pioneers were brutal on home ice, with a record of 11-1-2, with their only loss coming from regular season champions, Merchyhurst College. Sacred Heart vowed revenge on the Lakers, and on February 23 at the Mercyhurst Ice Center, the Pioneers handed them their first MAAC loss in the form of a 5-0 shutout.
The game that epitomized the spirt of Sacred Heart hockey was the contest that broke a vicious cycle of Pioneer playoff losses on the road. On Saturday March 9th number four seeded Sacred Heart hosted number five Canisius in the Pioneers' first-ever home playoff game. The Pionners ended the regular season 2-1-0 against the Griffs, with one being a 6-5 overtime win at MIP. Canisius came out powerful, scoring just 2:26 into the contest on the powerplay. Scoring was frozen for the remainder of the first and all of the second, and picked up when Canisius went ahead 2-0 at 2:20 mark of period three. With less then six minutes left to play in the contest, Fournier scored the ice breaker for the Pioneers. 31 seconds later, defenseman Nick Nutcher scored the game-tying goal to send the contest into overtime. Freshman Garrett Larson scored his second overtime game-winner against the Griffs at 10:31 to send the Pioneers to Worcester, MA for their first MAAC Semi Final game. The Pioneers fell to playoff champions Quinnipiac, 3-2 to end their most successful season to date at 16-14-4, 15-8-3 MAAC.
