JANUARY 9th & 10th
Navy Sinks Drexel (twice)
Drexel vs. US Naval Academy
Friday, January 9th & Saturday, January 10th


Navy defeated Drexel 5-3 on Friday night in Annapolis and 5-2 at home on Saturday evening. Too many inopportune penalties and an ineffective power play doomed Drexel during their inaugural weekend of the second half of the season.

On Friday, Navy jumped out to a 3-0 first period lead using a power play goal, a flukey bouncing puck goal, along with a howitzer-like blast from the right circle.

In the second period, Drexel cut the lead by one with a goal by Kevin Thren (Buklarewicz) at the 1:50 mark. Navy answered with its second power play goal four minutes later to reclaim a three goal lead. One minute later Drexel counterattacked with a goal by PJ Armstrong (Blazic, Mansur) and then again in the next minute with a goal by Jake Davis (Parra) to trim Navy’s lead to 4-3.

Navy goalie Estevez stoned Kyle Zoldy with a minute remaining in the second. The play turned around and Navy scored with just 44 seconds later.

The game ended 5-3 as Drexel was unable to convert on two power play opportunities in the third. The power play was the difference.

On Saturday, penalties were again a big part of the game. Drexel scored first as Zak Blazic (Cohen, Armstrong) slammed home a sensational feed from Alex Cohen to give life to Drexel’s power play at 7:30 of the first. Navy tied the game at the 15:34 mark on a nice deflection over the right shoulder of goalie Dan Pyne. Eddie Decker (Blazic, McMahon) gave Drexel the lead again with 6 minutes remaining in the first period.

However, the second period belonged to Navy as they scored 3 unanswered goals, one on a power play goal. Navy added two more goals, the last being an empty netter. Drexel failed to convert a 5 on 3 and took another penalty to lose the advantage.

If only there were no such things as penalties...

Game Summary Provided by: C.J. Blazic