There was no hangover for the UMass hockey team on Friday night.
Just a weekend removed from a sweep of then-No. 1 Denver, the sixth-ranked Minutemen rolled to a 7-1 victory over Union College in a non-conference tilt at the Mullins Center.
Freshman Kenny Connors tallied a pair of goals for UMass (3-0-1), which scored three times in the first period and never trailed.
“I got a lot of questions this week about if I was worried about a letdown after last weekend and I wasn’t going into tonight,” said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. “I thought the kids practiced really hard all week and I’m impressed with this group. They’ve been very consistent. Tonight was a really solid 60 minutes other than a little bit of puck mismanagement, I didn’t think we gave up a lot.”
Taylor Makar got the scoring started in the first period just 4:37 into the contest, but Union tied it midway through the period on a Bram Scheerer tally.
Connors got his first of the night in response to retake the lead, burying a power play goal, and Jerry Harding gave the hosts a 3-1 lead with just 13 seconds remaining before the opening intermission.
Cole O’Hara scored in the second period to extend the lead to 4-1, and third period goals from Ryan Lautenbach, Connors and Linden Alger put things well out of reach.
UMass goalie Luke Pavicich made 17 saves on 18 shots before Henry Graham came on in relief and stopped all five shots he faced.
“It’s great that we were able to get Henry Graham in there, but that was a really good follow up game after the highs of last weekend,” Carvel offered. “It was a really solid game for the group.”
The two teams meet again on Saturday at 7 p.m. back at the Mullins Center.