Coast Guard beset by Engineers in snowy blowout

The Engineers thrashed the Coast Guard Bears 18‒8 in their snowy season opener on Saturday, with Connor Glosner ’22, Trey Froehlich ’22, and Tyler Nalls ’22 all boasting hat tricks in the victory.

Rensselaer ran out to a 3‒0 lead early on in the first quarter with goals from Jon Matkin ’22, Anthony Mazzella ’23, and Glosner. The Bears brought the score back to within one point in the last three minutes of the quarter, but the Engineers extended the lead by three more points before the quarter came to a close. Angelo Venuto ’24 won the faceoff following the Bears’ second goal and carried the ball upfield 30 yards. Venuto hurled a shot past Coast Guard’s goalkeeper to increase RPI’s goal tally to four. With eight seconds left on the clock, Froehlich received a pass 25 yards from the cage in the center of the field, dodged a Bear, and sped around him down the alley. With one second left on the clock, Froehlich buried a shot into the top right corner to put the Engineers up 5‒2 headed into the second quarter.

RPI opened up the scoring in the second frame with a goal from Cooper Urban ’22. A minute later, a missed shot sent the ball out of bounds behind the net and Nalls was to inbound the ball. He sprinted forward from the endline and acrobatically dove in front of the goal. Reaching out his stick, Nalls hooked the ball in as he was falling, putting the Engineers up 7‒2 with a little over 13 minutes left in the half. Both teams would score in the following two minutes, Alex Ehrenstein ’22 scoring for RPI.

A snow squall deteriorated the weather conditions to the point of nearly zero visibility. After Ehrenstein’s goal, the teams headed into the locker rooms to wait for the heavy snowfall to subside. Coast Guard’s Taylor Gustafson scored his second and third goals of the game after the teams came back out of the locker rooms, earning himself a hat trick. The half ended with the Engineers leading 8‒5.

The second half began with Venuto netting his second goal of the game after just 26 seconds. The Bears answered with their sixth goal three minutes later, and the Engineers shot back with three goals, two of which were scored by Nalls for his hat trick. Coast Guard would bring the score back to 12‒7 with less than two minutes left in the third quarter.

RPI demolished the Bears in the final quarter, outscoring them 6‒1. The Engineers scored three times within the first minute; Froehlich scored two goals, his first after only five seconds and the other to complete his hat trick, and Glosner scored his second of the game. An RPI goal from Cooper Roman ’25 was then followed by a Coast Guard goal, making the score 16‒8.

Glosner completed his hat trick minutes later by chucking a 35-yard shot into an empty net after the Coast Guard goalkeeper tried to transition the ball upfield. Urban put the nail in the coffin with less than five minutes left, when he danced his way through the Bears defense and tucked in a low shot for his second goal of the game and RPI’s last. The 18‒8 victory brings the Engineers’ record to 1‒0. They return to East Campus Stadium on March 12 to take on MIT.

Click here for the box score.