The Temple Owls went into Albany in the Opening Round of the NCLL playoffs and pulled off an impressive win over the Great Danes to advance to the Quarterfinals.
Owls senior goaltender Zach Longacre was the story in this one. Coach Berkelbach sang the praises of his netminder afterwards. "Zach played a great game. Had a couple of huge saves on the doorstep that really generated a lot of momentum for the rest of our team."
Tanner Haines put Temple up early and Albany countered before Ryan Donofry hit a streaking Haines to make it 2-1 Temple. Luke Brennan (1g) and Haines" third found the Owls with 4-1 lead after one. Albany got the only second quarter goal and a quick third quarter tally to get it a one goal contest, 4-3.
But the Temple defense tightened and the offense came back with tallies from Brandon Feeney (1g), Ryan Schmidt (1g), and Ryan Donofry (1g,1a) bringing the third to a close with Temple in charge, 7-3. Short-stick defender Marco Broccoli opened the 4th off a Haines set up before Albany closed the gap to 8-4. Tanner Haines wasn't finished and he hit Bailey Haines (2g,1a) in stride to get it back to a five goal edge.
LSM Ben Geise got on the scoresheet when he assisted on Owen Winters' (1g) goal and LSM Chase Lavallie put an exclamation point on the contest with a set up for Haines.
Coach Chris Berkelbach was pleased with his team's effort - "I think we showed great resiliency especially coming off of the loss to Penn State last weekend. Albany played with a ton of heart but our guys were up to the task and able to answer each goal of theirs with a 3 or 4 goal run of our own. Our defense and faceoff groups played great again today. All the pieces seem to be coming together at the right time setting us up for what could be a special weekend in Annapolis."
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