SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. - The Saint Michael's College men's ice hockey team fell to the University of Southern Maine, 4-1, on Saturday at Cairns Arena during New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) play. The Purple Knights are 1-2 overall and 1-1 in the league, while the Huskies improved to 2-1 and 1-1.

Senior Josh Dickman (Kapaa, Hawaii/Saint Paul's School) scored for the second straight game for the Purple and Gold, which had won four straight home games against Southern Maine and was playing the middle game of a three-contest homestand. Sophomore Sam D'Antuono (Hingham, Mass./Dexter School) was 25-for-40 on faceoffs, and classmate Chris Johnson (Duxbury, Mass./Pomfret School) made 30 stops for his 14th career 30-save outing. The Purple Knights and Huskies both took 34 shots.

Juniors Brett Norman (Dawson Creek, British Columbia/Ontario Avalanche) and Alex Pantalone (Hudson, Mass./Boston Jr. Bruins), sophomore Parker Sanderson (Bangor, Maine/Saint Stephen County Aces) and first-year Cody Braga (Middleboro, Mass./Boston Jr. Bandits) all scored for Southern Maine, while junior Patrick Magliano (Pelham, N.H./Boston Bandits) dished off two assists. Classmate Kyle Shapiro (Ocean, N.J./Walpole Express) made 33 stops.

At 2:33 of the opening period, during which Johnson made eight stops, senior Cole Klippenstein (Franklin, Tenn./North Bay Trappers) rung the left point from the left point, and Southern Maine broke a scoreless deadlock near the midway point. Pantalone snuck a shot from the right circle to Johnson's lower left with 10:07 gone for the lone tally of the period. The Purple Knights had a handful of chances to tie during the latter portion of the period, with senior Connor Mitchell's (New Milford, Conn./Kent School) shot from the left boards denied by Shapiro's left pad at 12:00 and sophomore Nic Hermary (Coquitlam, British Columbia/Melfort Mustangs) slipping the puck over the crossbar from the hash marks at 13:30. Johnson denied Klippenstein again with a right pad stop from the right circle with six seconds to go.

With his team down 1-0 early in the second period, sophomore Colin Biebel (Roxborough Park, Colo./Walpole Express) had a wraparound attempt stopped at 3:55, and junior Eric Salzillo's (Johnston, R.I./Boston Bandits) rebound attempt was also denied. Mitchell rushed through the left circle during a 1-on-1 and had a backhanded bid turned aside at 7:30, while Norman lifted a power-play shot over the crossbar from the high slot at 10:30. Johnson came up with a glove save on first-year Brendan Murphy's (Saint Peters, Mo./Boston Jr. Rangers) shot from the left circle at 11:29.

The Huskies broke through with two power-play goals in a matter of 1:07, with Murphy firing a shot from the blue line that Norman knocked home at 12:05 for the first marker. At 13:12, Braga made it 3-0 after Klippenstein's initial shot was saved. Biebel had a shot ticketed for the lower right corner denied by Shapiro's right pad at 17:20, but the Purple Knights got on the board at 18:57, with Dickman scoring from the slot on a power-play tally. Senior Danny Divis (Media, Pa./Minnesota Wilderness) and first-year William Santangeli (Oakville, Ontario/Saint Mark's School) assisted. On another man advantage, Shapiro made four stops in the final five seconds on a flurry to his left.

Salzillo was denied as Shapiro slid to his left through the crease 50 seconds into the third period, one of eight saves he made during a stretch where the Purple Knights were at least one man up 4:43 consecutively. Sophomore Patrick Doherty (Tewksbury, Mass./Middlesex Black Bears) had a point-blank attempt stopped at 6:35 before Saint Michael's nearly killed off a pair of 5-on-3 penalties, but Sanderson scored toward the end of the second one, skating high into the left circle and picking the upper right corner at 12:43 for another insurance tally.

The Purple Knights open their Northeast-10 Conference slate by hosting Assumption College on Tuesday at 6 p.m. before hitting the road for their next four contests.