(O'FALLON, Ill., Jan. 25) – The McKendree University men's D3 hockey team defeated the Spartans from Aurora University by the score of 6-0 on Friday night at the McKendree Metro Rec Plex.
The win pushes the Bearcats to 6-11 overall on the season.
Sophomore
Riley Brown (Granite City, IL/Granite City High School) got McKendree on the board midway through the first period after scoring a goal on a shot that deflected off two Aurora defenders to find the back of the net. Junior
Nathan Gaterman (St. Louis, MO/Lindbergh High School) got credit for the assist. Four minutes later, sophomore
Christian Blandina (Glen Carbon, IL/Edwardsville High School) scored on a backhand in front of the net to push the Bearcat lead to two. Sophomore
Dalton Wolfe (Pekin, IL/Pekin Community High School) and freshman
Logan Bielecke (Glen Carbon, IL) were given assists on the goal. McKendree carried a two goal lead heading into the first intermission.
Shortly into the second period, Bielecke recorded his first goal of the night after he buried a rebound following junior
Trevor Rieck's (O'Fallon, IL/O'Fallon Township High School) shot. Sophomore
Derek Northrop (St. Louis, MO/De Smet Jesuit High School) netted his first of the night off a rebound from senior
Brent Feltes (St. Louis, MO/DeSmet Jesuit) to put the Bearcats up 4-0. With one minute left in the second period, Northrop notched his second goal of the night off a wrist shot 10 feet from net. Sophomore
Garrett Poole (Columbia, IL/Columbia High School) set Northrop up with the assist. After 40 minutes of play, the Bearcats took a 5-0 lead into the final period of action.
Sophomore
Dalton Kress (St. Peters, MO/Fort Zumwalt South High School) recorded the only goal of the third period as he deflected a shot from Northrop past the Spartan netminder to increase the lead to six. The score would hold as McKendree saw a 6-0 victory over Aurora.
Freshman
Joey Bernardini (Chesterfield, MO/Christian Brothers College High School) stopped all 31 shots he faced in his first shutout of the season.
The D3 hockey team will look to capitalize on a sweep on Saturday afternoon at 4:45p.m.
