Courtesy of Framingham State and Westfield Sports Information

The Westfield State Owls and Framingham State Rams are moving on to the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference Men’s Ice Hockey semifinals after winning their quarterfinal contests on Saturday night.

Westfield State University scored a late first-period goal by TJ Powers and held on for a 1-0 victory over Worcester State University on Saturday. The No. 3 seed Owls, 12-13-1, will play at No. 2 seed Plymouth State in the MASCAC semifinals on Tuesday, March 4.  Worcester, the No. 6 seed, finishes its season with a 9-15-1 overall record.

The Owls defeated the Lancers three times during the regular season by an aggregate score of 16-5. The tournament game was closely contested, however. There were five penalties whistled with Westfield killing a five-minute boarding penalty midway through second stanza.

Powers scored the game-winning goal with 1:15 remaining in the first period. He flicked a shot into the upper right post from the point with assists from Josh McCully and Frank Zuccaro.

Westfield outshot Worcester, 42-32, and Owl senior goalie Eddie Davey (32 saves) recorded his third career shutout and his second shutout in two weeks.

Worcester goalie Salvatore Tecci kept the game close with several outstanding stops and finished with 41 saves.

In the second quarterfinal of the day, senior goaltender Nick Cafrelli (San Jose, CA) made 37 saves to lead the fourth seed Framingham State University ice hockey team to a 7-1 rout of fifth seed Fitchburg State University at Framingham’s Loring Arena.  

With the win, the Rams improve to 11-10-4 on the season and advance to the semifinal round of the MASCAC Ice Hockey Championship.  The Rams will travel to top seed Salem State University on Tuesday, March 4th at 7 p.m., while the Falcons see their season come to a close with an 11-14-1 mark.

Cafrelli was outstanding in the game for the Rams turning away 37 of the Falcons 38 shots in the game.  He kept the Falcons off the board until the closing five minutes of the game when the game was already out of reach with the Rams lead 5-0 at the time.

Senior defenseman Bo Driscoll (Chelmsford, Mass.) led the Rams offense with four points on a goal and three assists, while junior Dean Cavicchi (Plymouth, Mass.) tallied a pair of goals.  Sophomore Cameron Hoffman (Fort Stevens, WA) and junior Brendan McCarron (Millbury, Mass.) chipped in with a goal and an assist apiece, while seniors Daniel Miressi (Monroe, Conn.) and Tom Tracy (Wakefield, Mass.) dished out two helpers each.

Cavicchi put the rams on top for good midway through the first period as he wristed a shot into the corner after the Rams controlled a loose puck in their offensive zone.  Junior Ryan McDonald (Anchorage, AK) followed just over two minutes later with what would prove to be the game-winner. 

Junior Dylan Cosford (Windsor, Ontario) sent a crossing pass to McDonald who found the back of the net for his 13th of the year.  A minute later, sophomore Ricky O’Connor (North Andover, Mass.) extended the lead to 3-0 and Cavicchi closed the first period scoring with his second of the game at 17:14.

The Rams tacked on a power play goal by Driscoll at 5:45 of the second to push the advantage to 5-0 after two.  Miressi fed the puck from behind the net to McCarron who laced a pass to Driscoll who laced a shot past the Fitchburg net minder for his fourth of the season.

Neither team found the net until Fitchburg State finally broke into the scoring column with 3:06 remaining.  Thomas Carlow and Shawn Brandley found Timmy Genova on the left side and Genova fired a shot past Cafrelli just under the crossbar cutting the deficit to 5-1.

The Rams would tack on two more, both on the power play, in the game’s final 1:01 to reach the final margin.  McCarron scored an empty netter at 18:59 and Hoffman found the back of the net with 11 seconds remaining.

The Falcons outshot the Rams 38-25 in the game, but Cafrelli was the difference maker coming up with the huge saves when needed.  Ryan Wysocki started in net for the Falcons making 12 saves and surrendering five goals before being replaced in the second period by Dan Finn who made six stops with one goal against.