Last year, team USA faced the ECAC All-Stars in a women’s ice hockey matchup at the TD Bank Sports Center. Saturday night, the Quinnipiac men’s team beat the USA U-18 national team, 4-2, in a late-season exhibition game.

In his first start of the season, senior goalie Pat McGann made 23 saves, eight in the third period, and fought off four third-period USA power plays.

“Pat McGann is a great kid and a great leader in our locker room,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said. “He hasn’t played a ton this year and the guys were playing hard for him.”

McGann and the rest of the Bobcats held on to a 3-2 lead for most of the third period until freshman forward John Dunbar got on the board with 2:25 left in the game to make it 4-2.

“It was a long three years without a start, and the guys were great,” McGann said. “The guys worked really hard in front of me, and we came out with a big win. It felt so good.”

Mike Dalhuisen, John Dunbar, Kellen Jones and Connor Jones all picked up two points. Connor Jones got the Bobcats going in the first period with a power-play goal 10:42 into the period for a 1-0 lead.

USA cut into a two-goal lead twice in the game, but fell short of tying the score both times. J.T. Miller scored 15:13 into the second to cut the Bobcats’ lead to 2-1, but Russell Goodman’s goal 1:20 later put the Bobcats back up 3-1.

USA’s Zac Larraza scored with three seconds left in the second to make it 3-2, but McGann wouldn’t let USA get any closer in the final period.

The Bobcats travel to New York this weekend to take on Clarkson and St. Lawrence.

“We’re in the home stretch here, we got nine league games left and we have our work cut out for us,” Pecknold said. “Our league is as good as it’s ever been, but we got to find some ways to get some points.”

Photo credit: Matt Eisenberg