Liberty 7, Georgetown 4.

Liberty University, founded in 1971 by Rev. Jerry Falwell, is a private, Christian Evangelical university located in Lynchburg, VA. Surprisingly, Liberty has an ice hockey rink on its campus and fields three ACHA men’s hockey teams (Division 1, 2, and 3), and a women’s ice hockey team. Liberty has as many hockey players from Canada (primarily Ontario) as from the U.S.

On Friday, October 30, 2009, at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, VA, the Liberty Flames faced-off against the Georgetown Hoyas. Georgetown came out blazing in the first period. In the first two minutes of action, while on a power play, Hoya co-captain Charlie Walsh (Sr-Cheshire, CT) unleashed a slap shot from the right point. Charlie’s shot was tipped in by Pete Owen (Freshman-Westwood, MA) who had established position in front of the net.

Shortly after Georgetown’s opening goal, the Hoyas were whistled for two minor penalties and faced a 5-on-3 power play for 1:30. With defenders George McGinniss (Sr-New Canaan, CT) and Charlie Beller (Jr-Chappaqua, NY) in the penalty box, the remaining Hoya defense of Gus Thompson (Jr-New Canaan, CT), Richie McGinniss (Soph-New Canaan, CT), Pete Bourneuf (Soph-Boston, MA), and Charlie Walsh, along with backchecking from the Hoya forwards, effectively killed the penalty. Six seconds after the penalty ended, Lukas Autenried (Soph-Wallisellen, Switzerland) took control of the puck in the neutral zone, outskated the Liberty defenders, skated hard toward the goal, deked the Liberty goaltender, and scored on a beautiful backhander to give the Hoyas a 2-0 lead.

The Hoyas' two-goal lead ignited the Flames, and they scored the next 4 goals of the game to take a 4-2 lead. With 5:27 remaining in the second period, Hoya co-captain Dan Lechner (Sr-Rockville, MD) scored on a backhander in heavy traffic, assisted by Pete Owen and Alex Yale-Loehr (Soph-Ithaca, NY). This tally tightened the score to 4-3.

Within 20 seconds of the Hoyas’ goal, Liberty answered with another goal to take a 5-3 lead. The Hoyas, however, were not finished. With 3:15 remaining in the second period, Alex Yale-Loehr received a pass from Charlie Walsh, kicked into high gear in the neutral zone, and raced down the left side on a breakaway. At full speed in front of the Liberty goal, Alex deked left and scored on his signature backhanded move to bring the Hoyas within one at 5-4.

In the third period, the Hoyas were outshot 15 to 5. Liberty scored the final two goals of the game to secure the victory. Overall, Liberty took 36 shots on goal and the Hoyas had 29.