HARRISVILLE, R.I. – Chase Carney scored twice and Ben Skelton pitched a 43-save shutout as the Keene State College men's ice hockey team rebounded from a Friday night loss to a top-10 ranked team nationally by beating Nichols College 3-0 on Saturday evening at Levy Rink.

It was the second shutout of the season for the Owls (6-8-1) and Skelton, who has a .916 save percentage in his first 12 career games (11 starts), a top 50 mark nationally among 118 qualified goalies.

Ultimately, the only goal KSC would need came 3:46 in when Sean McBride fired a shot through traffic from just inside the blue line that found its way past Michael Del Trecco for a 1-0 lead.  Skelton kept the Owls in front by making six saves in a six-minute span, and it paid off almost immediately when Carney used a self-pass to enter the zone up the right wall and found Peter Unger, who dropped a pass back for Carney to roof a shot past Del Trecco for a 2-0 advantage with 2:26 left in the period.  Skelton made three stops to help kill off a Bison (5-7-2) power play before the period expired to maintain the two-goal lead.

After a five-shot power play chance went scoreless for Nichols halfway through the second, KSC's top line tacked on another goal just minutes later.  Marcus Chrisafideis weaved into the zone and lost the puck before Carney got it back to him behind the net.  The Owls' leading goal scorer then made a perfect pass back to Carney, who was moving in past the left faceoff dot and rifled a shot past Del Trecco on his glove side to make it 3-0 with 6:44 left in the second.  The Nichols' goalie stopped Chrisafideis two times before the end of the period, including with 15 seconds left, to prevent KSC's lead from growing even larger.

Eight of the Bison's 17 shots in the final 20 minutes came on the power play, but Skelton preserved his shutout by stopping all of them.  In fact, 17 of Nichols' 43 credited shots (40 percent) came when a man up, but KSC's penalty kill went 5-for-5 on the night and the Owls improved to 4-1-1 this season when holding the opponent without a power play goal.

The duo of Chrisafideis (13-6-19, +8) and Carney (7-9-16, team-best +13) has now combined for 20 goals, 15 assists, and is plus-20 on the season.  Chrisafideis remains third in Division III in goals, behind only Landry Schmuck (Aurora) and Liam Fraser (St. Norbert) who have 14 each.  Carney had three blocked shots on the night, and KSC compiled a 17-5 advantage in that category.

"A really solid bounce back game for the boys," said Owls head coach Bobby Rodrigue.  "Skelton was excellent, but the entire team was better on both sides of the puck and in all thee zones.  Hopefully this will carry over to next weekend when the boys have two strong teams coming to town."

Six of Keene State's next seven games will be at Keene Ice, starting with a matchup against Western New England University (4-8-1, 1-6-1 CNE) on Saturday, January 18 at 7:00 p.m.  The Owls' only road game until February 21 will come when they travel to Buffalo for an outdoor game on Friday, January 24.  KSC, who will look to go over .500 during a home heavy stretch, is 2-2 on home ice so far in their NCAA Division III debut season.

"This was a way more complete game for us," added Rodrigue.  "Moving forward, we think the boys can have some success if they approach this next stretch of games the same way."