PITTSTON, PA (December 8, 2018) – The King's College men's ice hockey team had another strong showing on Saturday afternoon as they battled United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) co-leader and defending champion Utica College to a 3-0 defeat at Revolution Ice Centre in Pittston. Freshman goalie Brandon Daigle equaled his career-high of 54 saves as the Monarchs held another high-scoring team below their season average.

The Pioneers (8-5-0, 7-2-0 UCHC) put a lot of pressure on the Monarchs defense all game as King's offense struggled to get into a rhythm against a very strong defensive team. However, King's (1-13-0, 1-8-0 UCHC) was up to the task as they held the Pioneers off the scoreboard in the first 20 minutes. Daigle stopped all 16 shots he faced in the period including six while the Monarchs were on the penalty kill.

Utica took the lead in the second period when Shawn Lynch won a faceoff passing the puck back to Justin Allen. Allen found an open Brett Everson on the left wing who skated across the ice and found the back of the net for his third goal of the year at 6:36. That score stood until 2:30 of the third period when Gregg Burmaster knocked a rebound in front of net. Daigle was able to stop a deep shot from Brett Everson and a rebounded shot from Zach Borsoi before Burmaster scored his seventh goal of the season. He then set the final score with his second goal of the game at 8:58 of the period when he redirected a shot by Vaden McManus into the goal right in front of the crease.

Daigle had another excellent performance in between the pipes as the freshman made 23 saves during eight different Pioneer power plays and didn't allow a goal as the Monarchs were perfect on the penalty kill to increase their season percentage to 77 percent. The freshman also lowered his goals against average to 4.02 and raised his save percentage to .908.

Utica outshot KC 57-11 in the game as Pioneer netminder Sean Dickson picked up his second shutout of the season with 11 saves. Luciano Bucci, Tanner Wilding, and Matt Amelio all had two shots each to lead King's. Tyler O'Mara won a team-best 14 faceoffs on 24 attempts.

Despite the shot difference the Monarchs played the Pioneers very tough as the visitors had to really work the puck around to score all three of their goals. King's had a great showing this weekend with two exciting games against the conference co-leaders and two teams that were receiving votes in both national polls last week.

The Monarchs will take a few weeks off for finals and the holiday before beginning the second half of the season the first weekend of January at Trine University. King's will travel to Angola, IN for a two-game series at Thunder Ice Arena on Friday January 4, 2019 and Saturday January 5, 2019 for the final two non-conference games of the year.