PITTSTON, PA (January 21, 2022) – Rhett Padgett scored his first career goal while Jack Cooper scored his team-leading ninth goal of the year to highlight King's first men's ice hockey home game of 2022 on Friday evening at Revolution Ice Centre in Pittston. The Monarchs lost a hard-fought game 6-2 to Manhattanville College who is third in the United Collegiate Hockey Conference standings.

Padgett gave the Monarchs the lead midway through the first period as the defenseman took the puck down the left side of the ice and released a shot in on goal from the left circle. The shot found the back of the net for the junior's first career goal and third point of his career. The Monarchs kept the Valiants off the scoreboard until 16:16 of the period when Jarod Lavallee scored his eighth of the season to tie things up at one. 16 seconds later the Valiants took the lead with Dylan Pollak scoring his second goal of the season. Manhattanville took a 3-1 lead into the intermission when Tristan Frese tallied his third goal of the year with five seconds left.

Manhattanville increased their lead to 4-1 8:16 into the second period with Connor Boyce scoring his second goal of the year. The Monarchs cut into the lead at 14:09 as Cooper was able to sneak the puck into the back of the net for the ninth time this season. Casey Gerstein earned the assist on the goal, his fourth of the year. The Valiants opened the third period on the power play and James Gregory scored 35 seconds into the period to put Manhattanville back up by three goals. The teams battled the rest of the way with neither team able to score until Hayden Taylor scored an empty net goal with 20 seconds left to set the final.

The Monarchs gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about despite the loss as they held tough for the full 60 minutes. Cooper led the team with five shots while Tyler Blanchard had four. Ismael Ralsten made 28 saves in his second consecutive start. After scoring his goal, Padgett led the team with four blocked shots.

King's will look to rebound from the tough loss tomorrow night when they host Neumann at 7 pm at Revolution Ice Centre. KC defeated the Knights 6-3 back in November down in Aston. The Knights fell to Wilkes on Friday night by a 7-2 score.