By: Victoria Rutigliano
Sam Anas recorded three points in Quinnipiac’s defeat of Massachusetts-Amherst to become the 38th player in the Bobcats(12-0-2, 4-0-2 ECAC) history to reach 100 career points and 24th at the Division I level. His one goal and two assists helped edge the Bobcats past the Minutemen(6-4-4, 2-2-4 Hockey East) Friday night, 4-1. This victory ended a two-game tie streak for the Bobcats and keeps them unbeaten.
Anas said the milestone wasn’t a huge factor on his mind going into the game.
“Obviously its something you kinda look at but you’re not really, at least for me personally, I wasn’t pushing to get it or didn’t feel like I had some sort of monkey on my back,” Anas said. “So I just stuck to my game and was rewarded tonight.”
Anas’ three points in the game gives him nine goals and nine assists on the season for 18 total points. Anas has the most goals and points of anyone on the Bobcats roster this season.
Head Coach Rand Pecknold said this accolade, especially in Anas’ third year, is something to be proud of.
“It’s tough to get and to get in your junior year is really impressive,” Pecknold said. “You know, he’s an elite player, he played great tonight, he’s having another great season for us. We’re obviously very fortunate to have him here at Quinnipiac.”
After slow starts in all three match-ups last week, including two ties, Quinnipiac had a strong force in the first period. The team scored its first three goals in the beginning period, the first two goals happening 22 seconds apart.
Alex Miner-Barron had his first goal of the season scoring the opening goal for the Bobcats off a pass from Travis St. Denis. A handful of seconds later, Anas would follow-up with another goal for the Bobcats during a scrum in front of the Minutemen net. Quinnipiac’s final goal of the first period came from Landon Smith scoring a rebound off an initial shot from Miner-Barron.
After having trouble in the first period of the last three games, Pecknold said his team’s success came from one thing.
“Honesty,” he said. “You know, we kept the game simple. I think where we’ve gotten in trouble in recent weeks is guys just trying to do too much. Too much fancy one-on-one play.”
The honesty continued through the second period with Quinnipiac leading in shots 24-8.
In the third period, UMass came to life. It registered more shots than it had in the first two periods combined.
UMass’ lone goal-scorer, Marc Hetnik, said his team finally kicked it in gear in the final period.
“I think we just took a deep breath and just dialed it in,” Hetnik said. “And we knew what we had to do to execute our forecheck, execute our overall play. Just to be better.”
Quinnipiac only allowed UMass’ top line to register six shots all game. UMass Head Coach John Micheletto said the lack of opportunities, paired with the team’s tentativeness, led to the line’s inability to have chances in front of the net.
“The lesson for them is …they gotta go get it,” he said. “[They] can’t wait for it to come to them. And I think it was loud and clear for them all tonight.”
The two teams will face off again tomorrow at 4 p.m.at High Point Solutions Arena in Hamden, Conn.
