MENOMONIE, Wis. – It was a memorable first collegiate goal for freshman
Jarrett Cammarata who sent the Bethel University men's hockey team home with a season opening 3-2 win over Wisconsin-Stout. Cammarata put in the game-winner with 48 seconds left in regulation and just six seconds into a Royal power play.
The 1-0 Royals waste not time getting into conference play taking on Saint John's next week in a home-and-home series. Saturday's finale will be at Bethel University Arena with a 7 p.m. puck drop.
It only took one shot for the Royals to get on the board with freshman
Luke Posner scoring an unassisted goal 3:30 into the first period for his first collegiate goal. Netminder
Ridge Gerads was tested early making 11 saves in the opening period.
Posner put the Royals up 2-0 before the first intermission scoring on a feed from
Nick Ketola and the captain
Tyler Mros with under eight minutes left in the first. Bethel's penalty kill came out strong forcing the Bluedevils to go 0-for-2 with no shots while on the man advantage in the first 20 minutes.
Stout finally got Gerads number after 27 shots on goal cutting the BU lead down to one just 50 seconds before the second intermission.
While the Royals held off the Stout power play early in the third, the Bluedevils made it a whole new game scoring the equalizer 9:26 into the third.
The Royals went on the man advantage after Stout was whistled for a tripping penalty with just under a minute left in regulation. Winning the faceoff was Cammaratta in the Bluedevil zone as
Dylan Giorgio made a tape-to-tape pass to
Johan Kling who was just inside the blue line. Kling sent it towards the net as it deflected off a Stout defender and right to Cammaratta who finished it off.
