Courtesy Hamilton Sports Information
CLINTON, N.Y. - The Middlebury College Panthers scored 7:21 into overtime to upset the Hamilton College Continentals 2-1 in the quarterfinal round of the NESCAC Men's Ice Hockey Championship Saturday at Hamilton's Russell Sage Rink. The Panthers (8-10-7), seeded fifth in the eight-team tournament, will face sixth-seeded Amherst in the semifinal round, which will be held Saturday, March 5 at second-seeded Trinity. The host Bantams face eighth-seeded Tufts in the other semifinal.
The winning goal came off the stick of Jake Charles, who capitalized on a rebound by poking a loose puck past Hamilton goaltender Evan Buitenhuis. The play started when the Continentals attempted a clear by sending the puck along the boards from behind their net. After winding around the boards past the face-off circles, the puck took a bounce back toward center ice where Charles sent a pass to Vincent Gisonti, down low at the right post. Gisonti's shot was saved by Buitenhuis but the rebound wound up in front of the net to the goaltender's right, where Charles pushed it into the net for his seventh goal of the season.
The Continentals, who finished 13-8-4, outshot the visiting Panthers, 41-25, including a 22-8 advantage in the final 27:21.
Hamilton, playing a NESCAC tournament game at home for the first time since 2011, tied the score in the first minute of the second period after Middlebury scored early in the first.
The Panthers took their opening period lead on a goal by Evan Neugold 2:50 into play. Neugold took a pass on the Middlebury side of the blue line and skated down the right side. After swinging wide toward the boards to evade a defender, he snapped a high wrist shot into the Hamilton net for his sixth goal this winter.
Robbie Murden, the NESCAC's leading goal scorer, tied the score 39 seconds into the second with his 17th goal of the year. After a Middlebury clear attempt was kept in the Panther zone, the puck was batted around until Neil Conway pushed it to Murden, who took it to the top of the left face-off circle and scored inside the near post. The assist was Conway's conference-best 17th.
Middlebury's Liam Moorfield-Yee stopped the Continentals' last 29 shots, finishing with 40 saves.
The Panthers escaped two Continental scoring threats in the second. A Hamilton shot went over the crossbar after a two-on-one Continental break drew Moorfield-Yee out of the crease. With about four minutes left in the period, a blocked shot wound up in front of Hamilton's Richard Court in the slot but his backhand was smothered by Moorfield-Yee.
Early in the third, a shot by Murden sent Moorfield-Yee to the ice to make the save and after the puck rebounded off the prone goaltender into the crease it was cleared away from in front of the empty net by a Middlebury defender.
The two teams had played to a pair of overtime ties in conference play (two of Middlebury's 10 overtime contests during the regular season).
