Chesterfield, Mo. - The Maryville hockey program has been putting the pieces together in 2019-20, but it has been a process. For a program in its second year of existence, they have shown flashes. Instead of just flashes, the Saints put it all together for a couple of their biggest performances of the season. The Saints went to Springfield, Missouri to take on the nationally ranked Missouri State Bears. The Ice Bears came in ranked 22nd in the ACHA and Maryville put together two of their best performances of the season and swept the weekend series.
Offense has not always come easily to the Saints, but they scored in bunches during these two games. In the first game, the Saints came out and pounded the Bears with five goals before Missouri State could even find an answer. Maryville had six different goal scorers and buried the biscuit seven times.
Jim Hunter would get the game winner,
Damian Caringi would score twice and
Christian Alvegran, Robert Harrison, Jens Juliussen, and
Brad Boudreau would all find the back of the net.
However, instead of letting this be a one-hit wonder, the Saints came out just as hard on Saturday night. This time they scored two goals before the Bears got on the board. Maryville would get two goals from
Kole Mudra this time around.
Trevor Henson,
Anthony Stavrou and Robert Harrison would chip in for the rest of the goals on route to a 5-2 victory.
The Saints got great goaltending from
Ed Coffey. Coffey was rewarded with both starts after getting the win on December 6. Coffey would turn away 23 shots the first night and 32 the second night. He allowed four goals over two games for a .932 save percentage for the weekend. Coffey spread the praise around. "It was a great weekend for the boys," said Coffey. "Coming off Thanksgiving break, we knew we were going to have to sprint to the end of semester. We came together as a team and just battled all weekend and came out with two big wins. We are starting to mesh as a unit and get our feet under us. We know it's just a start, but we are looking to keep building off this weekend and keep going forward."
The Saints return to the ice Friday evening as Maryville travels to Normal, Ill. to take Illinois State. The puck drops at 7:15 p.m.
