Looking to change their luck around, the Marist Red Foxes took to the ice against the Binghamton Bearcats in a non-ACHA matchup. Unfortunately, like most games as of late, Marist once again found themselves on the wrong side of a blowout loss, being shut out 6-0 at the hands of the Bearcats.
With this loss, the Red Foxes (6-11) have been outscored 16-2 over their past three games and have now dropped seven of their last eight. The team has not looked right since the Pink the Rink game and is slowly losing grip on the season as the losses keep piling up.
“There’s peaks and valleys throughout a season, and right now we’re on the downward swing, said Coach Anthony LoBianco. “We’ve been working hard in practice to get things back together.”
The same mistakes that have burnt the Red Foxes in past games came back to haunt them. Odd man rushes and getting caught flat-footed continued to plague the Foxes, leaving them vulnerable for Binghamton to pounce on and find scoring opportunities. Marist did not keep up with the Bearcats’ physicality, taking hit after hit and failing to win puck battles along the boards.
Marist also struggled with maintaining offensive zone pressure and finding quality opportunities against Binghamton’s defense, and whatever ones they found were shut down quickly by goaltender Peter Skidmore en route to a shutout victory.
Looking to provide a spark to the lineup, Coach LoBianco decided to switch some things up to make the game flow better for the Foxes and get a better look at some other players. Two of the biggest changes that LoBianco made were putting in freshman defensemen MingWeng Shen as a forward and senior forward Christian Wilde as a defenseman.
“I played defense my freshman year, so it’s been a while, but it was good to be back there,” said Wilde regarding his position change.
LoBianco also added youth into the lineup as freshmen forwards Sean Mercogliano and Devin Curry saw game action since the team missed key junior forwards such as Sean Bruno and Tyler Stoneman. Additionally, sophomore goaltender John Safarty made his third start of the season.
While he did want to try and find something else that worked for the Red Foxes, LoBianco also saw the lineup changes as an opportunity to evaluate the talent the team has and how newer faces can impact the team.
“It was an AAU game, so we had the opportunity to get more players in,” said LoBianco. “It was nice to see the freshmen go, I saw some nice things from them.”
The game started off relatively slow for both teams, with neither establishing early control. Marist found some big opportunities, highlighted by sophomore forward Johnathan Martirano finding an open lane to the net while Binghamton was making a change, but nothing came of it.
Marist also played solid defense in their own zone, blocking shots and giving Safarty easy opportunities to turn aside Binghamton shots. Safarty made some heroic stops of his own, standing tall in net when the defense collapsed in front of him.
Binghamton struck first when senior forward Matt Usinski found a loose puck in front of the net that Safarty could not cover and trickled it past him to open up the scoring. Neither the Bearcats nor Red Foxes got much going from there, and it remained a one-score game going into the second period.
Things took a turn for the worse for Marist in the second period; Binghamton got off to a fast start, getting down into the offensive zone and putting two big shots on Safarty, whose quick reflexes kept the puck out of the net. The Bearcats also found their first big odd-man rush of the game, a three-on-one after picking up a misplayed puck, but once again Safarty played hero and put the opportunity to bed.
The Red Foxes started to lose pace with the Bearcats, having short-lived offensive zone time and not finding any quality scoring opportunities. Odd man rushes would burn the Foxes again as the Bearcats took advantage of Wilde’s rust at defense, and Binghamton’s forwards Sean Antonucci and Jack Maley went back and forth for a two-on-one goal.
The Bearcats started to pile on, adding another goal minutes later off a sweet backhand pass from Justin Franks to Jax Todorovic, who put the puck past Safarty from the left circle for another Binghamton goal just minutes later.
These goals upped Binghamton’s momentum, as they took over the game and left the Red Foxes in the dust. They added their third goal of the period with Dylan LaChance deflecting a shot from Matt Usinski past Safarty’s shoulder and into the net. Just like in recent games, Marist found themselves in a huge hole to dig themselves out of after the second period.
The Red Foxes hoped to surmount a comeback in the third period; there were some positives to start, as the Foxes found a scoring opportunity and Binghamton took a penalty. They were then stuffed on the powerplay by both Binghamton’s defense and Skidmore.
The Foxes’ hole would get even deeper as the puck got thrown up the ice to Binghamton’s Kyle Jayson, who found himself behind the defense and on a breakaway, easily scoring. The Foxes got sloppy again, turning over the puck and taking penalties, and Kyle Cullen put the hammer down on the game with a rocket from the blue line right past Safarty to seal Marist’s fate.
Even with the loss and how things have gone as of late, Coach LoBianco feels that the team can right the ship and get back in the win column, especially with important games coming up.
“Right now, we’re all pulling the same rope, and we have a ladder big enough to get us out of this hole,” said LoBianco. “We’re going to get out of this and make a run towards the end of the season.”
“You can’t dwell on it too much, it’s a long season,” Wilde added. “We have three league games coming up, which is big for our team. We got to wipe it clean, positive energy moving forward, and bring all we got.”
On the road ahead, the Red Foxes will travel to take on Sacred Heart on Friday, Dec. 6, and then take on Montclair State in a rematch of the Pink the Rink game on Saturday, Dec. 7
Edited by Ben Leeds
Photo by Jaylen Rizzo
For more coverage of Marist athletics, follow @cfmarist on Instagram, X and TikTok, and sign up to receive daily alerts here.