Beaver win first round of USCAA National Championship

By: Haley Paul

Asheville, NC - For the first round of the USCAA National Championship Tournament, Beaver traveled to Asheville to take on NHTI wednesday afternoon.

Beaver came out victorious scoring 5 goals on NHTI in an action packed game. Ten minutes into the game, Freshman, Alex Rectenwald (Pittsburgh, PA/ Chartiers Valley) scored Beaver's first goal with the assist from Sophomore, Anthony Voss (Pittsburgh, PA/ Chartiers Valley). Five short minutes later, Rectenwald had the assist to Junior, Marcus Smith (Pittsburgh, PA/ Perry), making the game 2-0 in the first 15 minutes. Sophomore, Logan Ridgley (Fombell, PA/ Riverside) scored in the 20th minute putting the score 3-0 on top of NHTI.  However, a few minutes later, NHTI answered back with a goal, trying to swing the momentum in their favor, But with another assist from Rectenwald, Smith scored again just before the end of the first half, bringing the game 4-1 in the first 45 minutes.

After the break, Beaver continued to dominate the game.  Holding NHTI scoreless, Beaver was able to score one last time with a goal by Voss with the assist from Smith to make the final score of the game 5-1.

Behind the solid defense of Beaver was sophomore, Rashitha Perera (Irvine, CA/ Northwood High School) who was credited with the win, making a total of 3 saves on just 4 shots.

Beaver now moves on to the next round where they will play Maine-Fort Kent Thursday at 2:00 p.m.