APPLETON, Wis. – The St. Olaf College men's hockey team stormed out to a 4-0 lead before holding off Lawrence University for a 6-3 win in its season opener on Friday night at Appleton Ice Center.
St. Olaf (1-0-0) scored three times in the first eight minutes of the game and held a 4-0 lead early in the second period before Lawrence (0-1-0) scored three consecutive goals to get within a goal heading into the third. The Oles maintained their lead in the third before scoring twice in the final minute to seal the win in the first meeting between the two teams since Nov. 26, 2016.
St. Olaf jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead on goals by senior
Camden Benson, sophomore
Cody Kempf, and senior
Tyler Green in the first 7:23 of the game. Benson tallied the sixth goal of his career just 1:54 in before Kempf made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at the 5:57 mark. Green capped the early flurry by tipping in a shot by sophomore
Connor Jensen at 7:23.
In the second, sophomore
Hunter Hayes put in a rebound off a shot by junior
Nicholas Sewecke on the power play at 6:40 to stretch the Oles' lead to 4-0. Lawrence responded with a power-play goal of its own just over a minute later to start its comeback, as the hosts drew to within 4-3 heading into the second intermission.
St. Olaf held onto its one-goal lead until scoring twice in the final minute of the game to come away with the three-goal win. Senior
Michael Webster banked the puck off the boards and all the way down and in for an empty-net goal with 50 seconds to go before sophomore
Connor McNaughton scored less than 30 seconds later to seal it.
St. Olaf held a 27-25 edge in shots on goal in the win. Sophomore
Ryan Nolan made 14 of his 22 saves in the second period while picking up the sixth victory of his career.
The two teams will wrap up their season-opening series with a 4 p.m. puck drop on Saturday, Oct. 31 back at Appleton Ice Center.
