1/18/2012 12:57 AM 

As 2011 wound down, the Retrievers dropped four of their last eight games after starting the season with an impressive 10-1-2 record. That decline led to UMBC dropping a spot to number 3 in the ACHA rankings and a seemingly inevitable return to Regionals in late February. Despite the less than ideal prospects of the future, UMBC turned their focus to their next opponent, and to finishing their home schedule on a high note as Millersville University came to town.

From the opening face-off the game was all UMBC. However good play by the Millersville goaltender kept the game scoreless through the opening minutes. The breakthrough would come almost nine minutes in when Brandon Fritz (Walled Lake, MI), who has recieved the "Bender Bucket" as the loser of the weekly shootout competition in practice on multiple occasions, took the puck off the boards and walked in on goal uncontested. He made no mistake when it counted most though and buried the puck five-hole to give the Retrievers a 1-0 lead; from there the offense flowed plentifully.  While on the penalty kill three minutes after Fritz opened the scoring, leading scorer Sean O'Connor (Stony Point, NY) stole the puck from a Marauders defenceman and scored on the breakaway to make it 2-0. A little more than a minute later on the power play, Erik Becker (Crofton, MD) broke an eight-game scoreless drought with a power play goal extending the lead to 3-0. As the period waned into the final minutes Justin Stewart (Philadelphia, PA) broke up a Millersville power play zone entry then finished the play on a breakaway thanks to a pass from O'Connor to send UMBC into the locker room up 4-0.

The second period saw more domination by the Retrievers as Dan Durantaye (Ellicott City, MD) deked out the Marauder goaltender two minutes into the period for UMBC's third shorthanded goal of the game. Later in the period team captain Nik Jost (Grosse Point Park, MI) jumped into the rush and scored to make the game 6-0 heading into the third. The final frame saw O'Connor , Durantaye and Becker all score their second goals of the game; followed by Matt Bloom (Ellicott City, MD) and Dan Armstrong (Bethesda, MD) adding tallies before the final buzzer of an 11-0 victory.

Trevor Miller (Macomb, MI) started the game and registered the win in net and made 7 saves in 20 minutes of action. Brian Mersman (Grand Rapids, MI) made 3 saves in his 20 minutes of play and Jon Drago made 9 saves in his 20 minutes. The three shorthanded goals in the game were more than the team had total from the first 21 games of the year. The power play coverted on 3 of 5 opportunities and the penalty was a perfect 6 for 6 extending their streak of consecutive games without surrendering a power play goal to 11 and extending their streak of consecutive penalties killed to 43.

UMBC will travel south to Virginia this coming weekend with two MACH-South games. Friday night UMBC will take on Virginia Tech at 7:30 and Saturday night UMBC will visit Liberty at 8:45. Both games are scheduled to be broadcast on HerbFM.