Keene, NH- On Saturday night the Keene State College Owls Men’s Hockey Club faced off against the Merrimack Warriors in the ACHA Northeast Game of the Week at Keene ICE.  KSC entered the game with a record of 6-0-1 (2-0 division) while Merrimack was 4-5.

The first period had only one goal and it came off the stick of Andrew Pierce. Pierce managed to bang home a loose puck in front of the net just over seven minutes into the game. Derek Clark assisted on the goal. Keene outshot Merrimack 19-5 in the first period but some stellar goaltending from the Warriors’ Derek DeCastro kept it a one-goal game. Jonathan Fields, although not tested often in the first period, made two great saves to keep the Warriors off the board.

A major penalty and game misconduct to Merrimack’s Connor Forbes gave Owls a five-minute power play that was enough to blow the game open. Pierce got the first goal of the power play with the helper going to Kyle Carignan. Jeff Rossman scored the next goal as he crashed the net hard and put home the loose puck. Cooper Hines registered the assist on the Rossman goal. Finally, Carignan scored the last goal of the power play with assists from Kurt Mitchell and Andrew Karlin. The Owls would add one more goal in the period and that came courtesy of Derek Clark. Mitchell and Pierce had helpers on the goal. Merrimack scored a power play goal of their own to close the gap to 5-1.

The teams traded goals in the third period. The Owls goal was scored by the captain, Kurt Mitchell. Pierce and Carignan were credited with assists. By the time the final buzzer went, the score was 6-2 in favor of Keene.

Jonathan Fields earned the win in net, making 32 saves including 24 in the second half of the game.

With two goals and two assists, Pierce has recorded 106 points in his career, moving into 1st place on the Keene State all-time scoring list, passing Pat Sullivan ’13, who finished with 103 points for Keene State.

Keene State (7-0-1 overall, 2-0 division) will wrap up the weekend with a divisional game at Holy Cross in Worcester Sunday evening at 7pm.  Live updates will be available on Twitter @KSCClubHockey.