After falling to Maryland with just ten seconds left in overtime Friday night, Temple (7-2-3) got back on the winning track at Wagner College, defeating the Seahawks by a score of 5-1 on Sunday.
“A win’s a win,” coach Ryan Frain said. “And we needed one badly after what happened to us Friday night.”
Temple opened up the scoring early, with sophomore forward Cody Vassa scoring his fourth goal of the year to give Temple 1-0 advantage.
Senior forward Joe Pisko then added to the lead, scoring his third goal of the season to put the Owls up 2-0 with 6:40 left to go in the opening period.
But Wagner answered just over three minutes later tallying a goal of its own on a power play, and cut the Owls lead in half going into the second period.
Despite having the 2-1 lead, the team was unhappy with its first period performance.
“We had a really slow first period,” Pisko said. “I don’t know if it was the bus ride or it being a Sunday night game which we’re not used to but it was not the start we were looking for.”
Vassa was a little more frank.
“We should’ve been blowing them out of the water,” Vassa said.
The second period also started out slow for Temple. Even though the Owls did have a couple of chances to add to their one goal lead they just couldn’t seem to find the net. But then, junior forward Stephen Kennedy scored his team leading 17th goal of the season on a tip in right in front of the net with 6:53 left to play in the second period. It would be the only scoring of the second as the period ended 3-1.
The third period saw Temple open up its play more as the team netted two goals by sophomore defenseman Justin McKenny and junior forward Phillip Vassilev. The goals gave the Owls a 5-1 advantage and a comfortable victory.
Still, it was not a showing the team was proud of.
“We’re not really happy with our overall performance tonight,” Pisko said. “This was a team that we knew that we should be beating by a pretty large margin, so the 5-1 goal differential doesn’t really tell the whole story.”
Temple will next host Rowan University at the Northeast Skate Zone on Friday night at 9:20 p.m.
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