RUTLAND, Vt. - Forward Tom Derosa (Charlestown, MA) scored a pair of goals and added two assists while teammate Kyle Gallegos (Westminster, CO) scored twice as well to lead Tufts University over Becker, 6-3, in the consolation round of the Rutland Herald Invitational (RHI) on Sunday afternoon at Spartan Arena in non-conference action.
The Jumbos improve to 2-2-1 overall on the season. The Hawks fall to 2-4-2.
Derosa jumpstarted Tufts offense just one minute and four seconds into the first period drilling home a loose puck in front of the crease behind Becker goaltender Tom Natoli (Suffern, NY) for an early 1-0 lead.
Thirty seconds later, Mike Vitale (Brookfield, IL) lit the lamp with a wrist shot over Natoli's blocker to take a 2-0 advantage. Nick Pappas (Alpine, NJ) and Dylan Plimmer (Phoenix, AZ) assisted on the score.
On the power play at 8:39, Zach Diaco (Rumson, NJ) dished a tape-to-tape pass to teammate Igor Fedorov (Dix Hills, NY) from behind the net and the junior finished with a slapshot that found the back of the net for a 3-0 margin.
The Hawks cut into the deficit with under a minute left to play in the first (19:20) as sophomore forward Mark Lotito (Staten Island, NY) received a pass in the neutral zone from teammate Dan Kane (Worcester, MA) setting up a break-away chance. After crossing the blue line, Lotito shifted Jumbos' goaltender Evin Koleini (Clarence, NY) with a deke move towards the right post then snapped a wrist shot off of the opposite post into the net for a 3-1 score.
In the second, Derosa netted his second goal of the contest and fourth in the tournament depositing a rebound off of Dylan Cooper's (Colorado Springs, CO) initial shot into the net at the 6:30 mark. Gallegos gave Tufts a 5-1 lead at 10:38 putting home a feed from Cooper,
who was stationed behind the net, past Natoli.
Late in the second on the power play, Gallegos tallied his second marker of the afternoon potting a rebound off of the stick of Derosa at 18:42 past backup goaltender Shaun Millerick (Hampton, MA) to take a 6-1 advantage.
Just nine seconds later, the Hawks responded as Lotito sniped a wrist shot over Koleini's blocker to cut the gap to 6-2. Kane assisted on the tally, his second helper of the game. Becker scored quickly in the third period on the power play at 1:04 as Kane notched his first goal of the contest off of a rebound to make it 6-3 but the Hawks rally fell short as both teams went scoreless for the remainder of the period.
Koleini ended the afternoon with 19 saves for Tufts. Natoli turned away 10 shots while Millerick had 16.
Game Box Score
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Game release courtesy of Castleton State College
