c/o Emilia Thornton
Last year ended with mixed emotions for the Cardinals. The men's ice hockey team won its first-ever NESCAC regular season title and earned the No. 1 seed in the NESCAC Tournament. However, their season came to an abrupt end with a shocking 4-3 loss to Williams in the first round.
Coming into this year, the Cardinals were looking to maintain their strong momentum from the previous regular season. They also have 2022-2022 All-America First Team Award winner and NESCAC Player of the Year Jake LaChance '23, and All-America Most Valuable Player and Third Team Award winner Wiggle Curblat. They also aimed to take advantage of the team's young talent after several key members of the 23-season team graduated. twenty three.
“We knew the dynamic of the team hockey-wise was going to be a lot different,” forward Ethan Davidson '26 said. said Ethan Davidson '26. “We had some new players coming in, but we also knew the young players coming back had to step up.”
The season got off to a strong start, opening with a 2-1 victory against the University of Connecticut on Friday, November 17th, with goals from captain/forward DJ Dixon '24 and captain/forward Owen Sweet '25.
The next day, the Cardinals continued their success with a hard-fought overtime victory against Tufts, 5-4. There were goals by forwards Zach Stimling '27 and Sweet, forward Jack Marottolo '26 and two goals by defenseman Patrick Morrissey. 25 people including the winner. Another standout contributor was Davidson, who had two assists against the Camels and two assists against the Jambos, earning him NESCAC Player of the Week honors for the first time in his career.
Following this strong start, the Cardinals began to face tougher competition, suffering back-to-back nonconference losses to No. 12 Endicott College, Curry College, and Boston College of Massachusetts.
The Cards then returned to NESCAC play on December 1, with forward Parker Sonderg '26 scoring the Cardinals' only goal late in the first period, handing Amherst their first conference loss of the season, 5-1. . The next day, the team suffered a narrow 2-0 loss to Hamilton.
After almost a full month off, the Reds and Blacks returned to the Northfield Savings Bank Holiday Tournament, where they narrowly lost 2-1 to the University of New England, ranked No. 13 in the nation. However, the next day, the Cardinals managed to end their losing streak with a decisive 5-2 victory over Aurora University, with goals from Stimling, Sweet, forward Henry Carlson '25, forward Joe Caro '26, and Sondag.
Dixon emphasized that the win was especially meaningful after more than a month of disappointing results.
“It was definitely a fun game,” Dixon said. “We had a lot of guys scoring for the first time, a lot of guys who got the hot stick at the right time. It was just an all-around win. We scored shorthanded, we scored on the power play. We scored some goals, so we just went around the block and it was a good win.”
c/o Emilia Thornton
The Red and Black then returned to NESCAC play starting Friday, Jan. 5 against Middlebury. The Cardinals took the lead midway through the first period with a goal by forward Connor Sutherland '27. But the Panthers fought back with a goal of their own late in the second period. Neither team was able to find the back of the net for the remainder of regulation, and the game ended in a 1-1 draw after a scoreless overtime period.
The next day, the Cardinals played Williams for the first time since losing in the NESCAC quarterfinals. The game got off to a slow start, with Efs scoring the first goal at the end of the first period. In the second, Marottolo took advantage of a power play to score the Cardinals' first goal of the day, tying the game at 1-1 going into the third. Dixon then scored another goal to give the Reds the lead, but the Efs fought back a minute later to equalize the score again. Forward Danny Judge '26 added one more point to restore the Cardinals' lead. But Fs remained undeterred and scored three unanswered goals to tie the game at 3-5.
The Cardinals then traveled to Maine on Friday, January 12th, with Bowdoin starting. Sweet scored the first goal of the game late in the first inning, giving the Cards an early lead. But with less than three minutes left in the final period, the Polar Bears managed to find the back of the net and the game went into OT. Bowdoin closed out the game with a power play in the opening two minutes, making the final score 1-2. The next night wasn't much better for the Red and Black team as they suffered a 5-0 loss to Colby.
Davidson said he saw the team's potential despite the disappointing result.
“We definitely played better as the season progressed, even if it wasn't reflected in the record,” Davidson said. “We played close games against these teams and knew we were good enough to beat them. We missed some bounces and missed our ability to compete in the third period. I mean, it was just the end of the game. We knew if we played well, we were good enough to play any team.”
The following week, on Friday, January 19, the Cardinals won a decisive 4-1 victory over the University of Connecticut, with Judge and Sweet each scoring one goal and forward Kyle Anderson '24 scoring two goals, and Davidson's proved correct. In a hard-fought battle the next day, the Cards lost 3-1 to the Jambos with Sutherland's only goal.
On Tuesday, January 23rd, the Red and Black teams faced Albertus Magnus University in their final non-conference matchup of the year. After a scoreless second period, Dixon took advantage of the power play to put the Cardinals ahead. But the Falcons struck back two minutes later to tie the score at 1-1 and send the game into overtime. Dixon once again proved to be an offensive force, scoring the winning goal just one minute into overtime, making the final score 2-1.
The following weekend, Friday, January 26th, the Cardinals suffered another close loss to the Mammoths. After a scoreless first period, the Mammoths scored their first goal of the game early in the second period. The Cardinals fought back with a goal by Sutherland early in the third, but the Mammoths scored two more, and despite Dixon's unassisted goal at the end of the period, the Red and Black were unable to close the gap. They lost 2-3. .
The Cards then suffered disappointing conference losses before facing Hamilton (2-5), Middlebury (2-5), Williams (3-5), Bowdoin (1-4) and Colby (1-4). repeated. In-state rival Trinity, ranked No. 6 nationally, will play the final series of the season.
In Game 1 on Friday, February 16th, both teams went into the third period scoreless as goaltender Eric Voloshin '24 made an incredible 40 saves on the night, but the Bantams lost just 6 minutes remaining. They managed to score one point just as the game was over, defeating the Cardinals 0-1. The next day, the Cardinals' defense continued to perform well, with goaltender Mark Smith '24 setting a program record with 59 saves in regulation, but the game ultimately ended in a 2-0 loss.
Although disappointed with the result, Sweet said the game against Trinity showed the team's growth as the season progressed.
“They were the top team in the country and we lost by a total of three goals,” Sweet said. “So there's definitely growth.”
At the end of the day, the Cardinals, while underwhelmed by the results this season, are looking back positively at how they continued to develop a strong team culture and stay connected through adversity.
“You can just say [that] Everybody loves everybody,” Dixon said. “It's more than hockey and they become best friends for life. I've never been exposed to a culture like Wesleyan before and I've played on a lot of teams. So I value that more than winning or losing. It's a special group and I'm proud to be a part of it because it continues to get better every year.”
Coming off this season, the Cardinals look forward to improving their game while continuing to have a truly special teams camaraderie.
“The problem with this team this year is we can't finish games,” Sweet said. “We had a big lead in the first period, so we could have at least gotten a draw, if not a win. This is a pretty concrete goal. And it might come with conditioning and better match management. And I think that comes with experience. Another positive takeaway was that a lot of the younger kids on the team were able to experience what it's like to lose a game by one point. So hopefully we can learn from that and that will lead to more wins and points.”
Erin Byerly can be reached at ebyerly@wesleyan.edu.
