AMHERST, Mass. – Marcus Chrisafideis scored his team-leading 12th goal and the Keene State College men's ice hockey team was within one entering the third period in their second road game in less than 48 hours, but the Owls took four penalties in the final period and ultimately allowed Amherst College to pull away for a 5-2 victory on Sunday afternoon at Orr Rink in the first-ever meeting between the programs.

It was ultimately two goals in 33 seconds for the Mammoths (5-4-1) and a parade to the penalty box in the third period that helped doom the Owls (5-7-1), who had drawn within one with less than four minutes to go in the second period on a power play goal by Kyle Gonzalez that came as a result of a five minute major assessed to Andrew Carmody.  Chrisafideis found the back of the net again to trim the deficit to two (4-2) at 7:38 of the third, but Ben Ritter answered with a power play goal of his own a little more than six minutes later to give Amherst breathing room.  It was ultimately the only goal a man up that the Mammoths would score on five chances – but four of those opportunities came in the final period and wore the Owls out, as they were a man down for 7:44 of the period.  In that time, the Mammoths generated eight of their 19 shots in the third.

KSC got off to a slow start for the second consecutive game and was again minus-10 in shots in the first period, but just as they did Friday at Plattsburgh, found themselves down by only a goal at the first intermission as Will Slohm made 13 saves to start his day.  The goal the Owls did allow came when Carmody was completely alone in front of the net and fed Oscar Smink for a point-blank score with no defender around him.  Keene State had the better of the play early in the second with a chance to tie, but Andrew Palena made five saves in the opening 3:14.  Those paid off when Ben Snyderman doubled the lead by firing home a bad angle goal to the right of the right faceoff dot off a pass by Jacob Pohl that he had to reach for prior to getting the shot off.

The Owls spent most of the rest of the period on the power play with a brief four-on-four sprinkled in.  Gonzalez made it a 2-1 game with 3:42 left in the period after he was unbothered in front of the net to tip in Peter Unger's feed as Palena was expecting Unger to shoot and moved toward the near post.

After outshooting the Mammoths 15-12 in the second, the game swung in a major way early in the third when Magnus Gadowsky scored only 2:11 in before Max Vander Vort added another only 33 seconds later to make it 4-1.  Chrisafideis bounded in to pot a juicy rebound of Jason Smith's shot about five minutes later to keep KSC with a chance, but they spent much of the rest of the game on the penalty kill to spoil any chance of a comeback.

"Amherst was definitely the fastest team our guys have faced (so far)," said Owls head coach Bobby Rodrigue.  "We felt our boys played well but the unnecessary penalties in the third period killed us.  More to work on for next weekend."

Slohm finished with 40 saves for KSC, including 16 in the third period.  Palena stopped 26, 14 of which came in the second period.

The Owls return to action next Friday at 7:00 p.m. against nationally ranked Curry College (11-3, 6-2 CCC) at the Canton Ice House.  Amherst visits Colby College (7:00 p.m.) and Bowdoin College (3:00 p.m.) next Friday and Saturday, respectively.