The Boston College Eagles did enough to get past Colorado College on Friday night, and then they did a little more. Behind Ryan Fitzgerald’s two goals, Jeremy Bracco’s three assists, and Thatcher Demko’s steady goaltending, BC took the first of two tilts against the Tigers in Colorado Springs 3-0, despite similarly impressive goaltending from Demko’s counterpart, Jacob Nehama.
BC controlled the run of even strength play in the first period and doubled up the Tigers shots on goal, but Demko faced one of his hardest tests early when a BC’s power play unit gave up a CC odd-man rush fewer than three minutes in. Demko got his pad on Matt Hansen’s shot to thwart the Tiger’s threat and did not face much more of a scare during the first frame, as the Eagles easily killed off both of their penalties. The line of Chris Calnan, Austin Cangelosi, and Miles Wood generated BC’s best scoring chances in the early third of the contest, but Wood was turned away by Nehama on one of the trio’s first shifts while Calnan could not convert Wood’s drop pass as the period drew to a close.
Wood kept it up early in the second by creating another scoring chance with a net drive that went too far, as Wood knocked the net off its pegs before Cangelosi could convert a good goal. Fitzgerald got his own run at the net a few minutes later with a mini-breakaway that he also went a little too deep on, but he was able to recover the puck and create a second chance opportunity that he shot far side past Nehama at 4:21 for what was the eventual game winner. Freshmen linemates Bracco and Colin White picked up the assists on Fitzgerald’s geno. Perhaps buoyed by finally seeing some fruits of their labor on the scoreboard, the Eagles came at the Tigers fast and furiously after Fitzgerald’s tally and only had their control over the game stifled by penalties called on Cangelosi and JD Dudek.
Nehama kept his skaters within striking distance for most of the third period. Without the freshman from Allen, Texas, the final score would be more representative of the play on the ice, but the score does indeed deceive because of Nehama’s work. He stoned Calnan at the onset of the third period and, a couple minutes later, somehow kept the puck out of the net with a sprawling save during a scrum in CC’s crease. Nehama and the Tigers’ penalty killers then denied the Eagles an insurance goal in the middle of the third after Wood drew a slashing call that may have merited a penalty shot.
Still down just one and pressing to tie the score, CC gave up an odd-man rush going the other way and Fitzgerald buried another far side snipe on Nehama, picking a top corner with a little over five minutes to go. Bracco and Steve Santini were credited with the assists on Fitzgerald’s second of the night and fourth of the year.
Three and a half minutes later, Zach Sanford realized that the key to beating Nehama was to get a feed from Bracco, and so Sanford rified a one timer past the flailing Tigers’ netminder for his third of the season and gave Bracco his third apple of the game to make the score 3-0.
Featured Image by Arthur Bailin / Heights Staff
