By Alex Tavaglione 

FALL RIVER, MA – The Roger Williams University Varsity Hockey team took the ice on Friday, Jan. 23 to take on the Endicott College Gulls. The game kicked off with an RWU goal at 2:20 scored by Jacob Kettwig, assisted by Colin Kwak and Christian Worrell. Despite the quick goal, the game remained 1-0 Hawks through the first and second periods. 

It wasn’t until 9:14 in the third period when the Gulls tied the game with a goal scored by Louie Kamienski, assisted by Kyle Furey and Sebastian Speck. 

With the game tied 1-1 at the end of regulation, the Hawks headed to overtime. After the short five-minute overtime period, the game was still tied and headed for a shootout. The Hawks sent four players to take aim at the Endicott net before JJ Alger scored the go-ahead goal. Even though the Hawks had pulled ahead, the game wasn’t over yet. It was now up to goalie Jacob Jaslow to stop one last shot from Endicott. The crowd erupted as Jaslow blocked the shot and the Hawks took home the victory. 

Following the game, Coach Chris Hall said that even though he’s really impressed by the growth of the team now that they are just over halfway through, the primarily freshman team needs to start playing like sophomores. “[They]  have all played as many games as a lot of freshmen play in college hockey. So the freshman excuse is out the door. We need to play like sophomores. And I’ve been really impressed with how they’ve done that and continue to mature and grow. Every game we play, there’s growth and development from our guys, and I’m really excited for what the home stretch holds…  We’re playing our best hockey this season. We continue to get better and I’m just really, really proud of this team.” 

With this game in the books, the Hawks began to look ahead to their second game in a row against the Gulls on Saturday, Jan 24. Hall said that game prep would become more about the intangibles rather than strategics. “ It becomes a lot more about our ability to rest and recover and to recharge than it is about our ability to, oh, we’ve gotta do this a little bit better, or that a little bit better.” said Hall  “I think we played a pretty good hockey game tonight and so now our ability to repeat that is far more important… It becomes a lot more about us than about them. ” 

RWU fell in the second game against Endicott with a final score of 5-2, but they will look to take another step forward when they return home to face the University of New England Nor’Easters on Friday, Feb. 6 with puck drop at 5 PM.