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Bethel Hockey Squad Beats Farmingdale State to Capture National Championship

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ROCHESTER, NY — The Bethel University Wildcat D4 Hockey team beat Michigan State 4-1 Sunday morning and moved to the title match in the 2019 National Collegiate Roller Hockey Championships in Rochester, New York. The championships are being held at the Bill Gray’s Regional Cineplex in Rochester.  
With the victory over MSU the Wildcats (22-3) moved on to the title game to face Farmingdale State (21-3) who beat Lindenwood in the other semi-final match. The two squared off for the D4 national championship at noon.
In the MSU match, Bethel’s Andrew Ether scored on assists from Chris Mahaffey and Josh Hirst in the second period to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.   Ether scored again in the third period on an assist from David Yu. Tyler Zaino gave the Wildcats a 3-0 margin on an assist from Hirst. The Spartans scored to cut the Bethel advantage to 3-1 midway in the third. With less than a minute remaining Hirst put icing on the cake with an empty net score to thrust the Cats into the position for a championship. Bethel outshot MSU 33-20. Noah Vanderbeck had 19 saves for the Wildcats.  
The championship match saw Mahaffey score in the first period to give Bethel a 1-0 lead after one. Zaino had a huge assist on the score. Blake Jakopec extended the Wildcat lead with a second-period strike. The Cats led 2-0 after Sean Matthews had the assist on the Jakopec score. Farmingdale’s Frank Guida scored later in the period to cut the Bethel advantage to 2-1.   Matthews answered again but this time with an unassisted goal and the Cats led by two again at 3-1. Hirst scored on a power play with eight seconds to give the Cats the 4-1 win and the national title. Farmingdale State outshot Bethel 24-16 but Vanderbeck again was outstanding in goal with 23 huge saves.

Bethel, Hockey, National, Championship