BRISTOL, R.I. –- Eastern Connecticut State University's six-match regular-season winning streak over parts of three seasons came quietly to a halt in a 13-5 non-conference loss at Roger Williams University Tuesday afternoon at Bayside Field.
Roger Williams (2-0) scored the first six goals of the match and limited Eastern (2-1) to one goal until sophomore
Shane Haggerty's (Stamford) team-leading seventh goal of the season 36 minutes into play. By then, the Warriors trailed by eight as they fell to the Hawks for the fifth straight time after winning the first four matches in the series dating back to the program's second season in 1997. Eastern played without senior active career scoring leader
Jake Liebowitz (Trumbull), this year's scoring co-leader.
The Warriors had won their final two regular-season matches of 2019, the only two played in the abbreviated 2020 season and had opened 2021 with road wins over Mitchell College (19-4) and University of Saint Joseph (8-2).
Eastern Highlights
Tyler Stein (Milford): 2 goals, 1 assist, 2 ground balls
Domenic Scarano (Berlin): 5 ground balls, 4 caused turnovers
Sean Anderson (Fairfield): 1 goal (first of his career), 1 ground ball
David Harrold (Southington): 6 face-offs won, 4 ground balls
Jack Farrell (Stratford): 11 saves, 13 goals allowed, 2 ground balls, 1 CT, 52:39 minutes in goal
Hawk Highlights
Jared Grier: 2 goals, 3 assists, 2 ground balls, 1 caused turnover
Noah Ravas: 3 goals, # assists, # ground balls, # caused turnovers
Brenden Whitten: 1 assist, 4 ground balls, 3 caused turnovers
Connor Hillemeir: 10 face-offs won, 6 ground balls
Ryan Bannon: 8 saves, 5 goals allowed, 1 ground ball, 49:09 minutes in goal
How It Happened
A scoring barrage late into the first quarter gave Roger Williams a lead that would prove to be insurmountable. Connor Moriarty put RWU up 1-0 with just under seven minutes to play in the opening period. That score would be part of a 5-0 run for the Hawks over the remainder of the first. Grier, Gabe Reale, and Josh Tillis each tallied goals for the Hawks over that span to put RWU up five entering the second quarter.
Ravas got things started for the Hawks with a score shortly into the second for a 6-0 lead. Stein managed to get the Warriors on the scoreboard halfway into the period with a goal to make it a 6-1 game. However, Ravas added two more scores for RWU in the period to give Roger Williams a commanding 8-1 lead going into halftime.
Two more tallies for the Hawks in the first four minutes of the second half increased the lead to nine before a man-up goal by Haggerty ended the run. Roger Williams would ultimately take a 12-3 lead into the fourth quarter, where in the final period, Eastern scored twice to RWU's one goal.
Eastern visits Castleton University Saturday at 2 p.m. in its Little East Conference opener. When the teams met for the first time in LEC play, the Spartans posted an 11-10 overtime win at Dave Wolk Stadium. The Warriors had won the first non-conference meetings in the series, 19-2 at Castleton, VT in 1996 and 23-2 at home in the first round of the 2005 ECAC Tournament.
Roger Williams University Sports Information Contributed to this report.
