Jan. 30, 2004

Final Stats

MILFORD, CT (January 30, 2004) - The Sacred Heart University men's ice hockey team ended their season long slump with an impressive 4-2 over Connecticut in an Atlantic Hockey contest. The win was the 100th for Pioneers Head Coach Shaun Hannah.

Sacred Heart jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first period when Garrett Larson (Rycroft, AB) scored an unassisted goal at 13:13 of the opening period. Larson moved from behind the net end shoved the puck past Connecticut goaltender Scott Tomes (Windham, NH).

That lead grew to 2-0 in the second period when Mike Reagan (Flin Flon, AB) took a pass from Bernie Chmiel (Pittsburgh, PA) and carried it into the offensive zone and ripped a shot past Tomes.

The Huskies got on the board midway through the second frame when Eric Helstedt (Minot, ND) scored shortly after a UConn power play expired.

Sacred Heart answered when Larson netted his second goal of the game at 18:08 of the second period from Reagan and Konn Hawkes (Watrous, SK).

Connecticut closed back to within one goal on Marcus Baxter's third goal of the season.

That was as close as the Huskies could get as Rocco Molinaro (Dearborn, MI) sealed the game with his sixth goal of the season from Larson and Marc-Andre Fournier (St. Nicholas, PQ).

UConn was unable to sustain any pressure in the closing minutes of the game and the Pioneers claimed their first win since November 25, 2003 and the 100th of Hannah's career behind the Pioneers bench.

"Reaching 100 wins was nice but seeing the team come together and play as well as they did was even better," said Hannah. "This was a big win for us and we need to carry this into tomorrow's game."

Pioneers goaltender Kevin LaPointe (Quebec, PQ) made 22 saves in recording his fifth win of the season. Tomes made 25 saves in taking the loss.

Sacred Heart and Connecticut will meet again tomorrow night at 7:05 PM at Storrs, CT.