RUTLAND, Vt. – Marcus Chrisafideis continued his torrid start with two more goals and was named to the Terry Moran Invitational All-Tournament team while Peter Unger and Chase Carney also both scored twice as the Keene State College men's ice hockey team used a six-goal third period to post a wild 8-5 victory over the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts at the Spartan Arena in the post-Thanksgiving tournament hosted by Vermont State University Castleton.

The eight goals represent a new season-high for the Owls (3-5-1), who snapped a three-game losing streak.  Chrisafideis notched his eighth and ninth goals of the season while also posting four assists and a plus-4 rating.  He got the third period barrage of scoring underway, scoring on the power play 4:27 in to give KSC their first lead of the game at 3-2.  MCLA answered just 1:32 later, but Carney and Unger responded by helping each other score 2:41 apart halfway through the period to stake the Owls to a 5-3 advantage.  The Trailblazers got back within one just 14 seconds later, but Corey Tumenas found the back of the net just 10 seconds after that to make it 6-4.  The crazy final 20 minutes continued, as Shane Green brought MCLA within 6-5 just 33 seconds after Tumenas had scored – making it four goals combined by both teams in 57 seconds.  However, KSC finally kept MCLA at bay late as Unger and Chrisafideis notched helpers on another Carney goal with 4:58 left to put the Owls back up two, and Chrisafideis and Carney then helped Unger pot an empty net goal in the final minute to set the final margin.  Keene State had a 19-8 edge in shots in the third period and a 42-23 advantage in that category overall.

Four Owls recorded multi-point afternoons, including Chrisafideis (2-4-6), Unger (2-3-5), Carney (2-3-5), and Conor Perrier (0-2-2).  The initial three were all plus-4 on the day, and Carney was 17-9 at the faceoff dot.  KSC took only one penalty on the afternoon and killed off MCLA's power play chance.

Remarkably, through two periods before the combined nine-goal eruption by the teams combined in the third, it was only a 2-2 game through two as KSC erased a pair of deficits that were both created by Christopher Gallagher, who finished with a hat trick.  He opened the scoring 9:16 into the afternoon, but Payton Jones tied it 1-1 with 4:32 left in the first.  Gallagher put the Trailblazers up by a goal again halfway through the second, but Chrisafideis got his productive afternoon underway just 3:22 later to make it 2-2, which it remained for the final six minutes of the second before the wild third period commenced.

"The boys showed resilience today to stick to their game plan and they got rewarded for it," said Keene State head coach Bobby Rodrigue.  "We loved the energy they had in the third period.  Hopefully this is something we can build on for next weekend.  They were fun to coach today."

Will Slohm got the start for KSC in the net and made 18 saves, while Mathew Gover made 34 stops for MCLA, 25 of which came in the final 40 minutes.

The Owls close the pre-holiday portion of their schedule with a pair of games next weekend, starting with a home game against St. Michael's College (7-3-0, 5-2-0 Northeast-10) on Saturday, December 7 at 5:00 p.m.  The Purple Knights are 4-0-0 on the road and just 3-3-0 at home.