PITTSTON, Pa. - The Neumann University men's ice hockey team returned to United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) play on Friday evening with a hard-fought 6-1 victory at King's College.
 
Chris Caldwell led the Knights on the evening with three points (1 g, 2 a), while Evan Hoey also tallied twice. Kyle Pantelone picked up the win in net with 39 saves on 40 shots.
 
The Knights set the tone of the game on just the first shift via the line of Caldwell, Zac Boyle and Glenn Florczak. Florczak tickled the twine just 24 seconds into the first frame off assists from Boyle and Caldwell to give the Knights an early 1-0 lead. The same trio continued to dominate on their second shift of the night, doubling the Neumann lead at the 3:35 mark as Caldwell found the back of the net off a feed from Florczak to make it 2-0.
 
King's answered back with a power play goal at 15:17 to cut the Neumann lead in half at 2-1, but the Knights would have the last laugh in the period. The visitors received a pair of late scores from Barry Kneedler and Thomas Mansbridge to take a comfortable 4-1 lead into intermission.
 
Pantelone would be the top star of the second stanza, coming up big throughout the period while stopping all 20 shots he faced in the frame. The Knights continued to roll offensively as well, making it 5-1 at the 9:04 mark of the second after a power-play goal from Hoey. The score would remain the same heading to the third with Neumann holding a 36-22 edge in shots.
 
Pantelone and a sturdy Neumann defense corps were again solid in the final frame, limiting the Monarchs to just eight third period shots that were all stopped. The Knights then put an exclamation point on the win with a sixth goal midway through the period, again on the power-play via Hoey to clinch the 6-1 conference victory.
 
Neumann (3-6-0, 3-4-0 UCHC) will return home tomorrow for its final game of the 2019 portion of its season with another UCHC contest versus Wilkes University. Puck-drop is scheduled for 5:00 PM.