PITTSTON, PA (Dec. 1, 2023) - - In what turned out to be a highly intense match, the King's College men's ice hockey team defeated the Arcadia University Knights 4-1 in the first of a two-game United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) series at the Monarchs' home rink, Revolution Ice Centre. Three Monarchs scored in their win, including two goals from Ethan Hersant. King's is now 3-6-0 overall and 3-4-0 in UCHC play. 

Both the Monarchs and Knights came out aggressive on the ice within the first minutes of play and continued to battle back and forth until King's Casey Gerstein scored the first goal of the evening after six minutes of play thanks to an assist by Jakub Viedemann. Despite having an early lead, King's continued with its foot on the gas and scored a second goal just three minutes later. Denys Arkhypenko found the back of the net for the Monarchs with assists from Gerstein and Cameron Bauer. The Knights were unable to redeem themselves in the first period, giving the Monarchs a 2-0 lead going into the second period. 

Despite tallying 13 shots in the second period, King's was unable to put the puck in the goal to build onto its lead. However, the Monarchs continued to hold off Arcadia from scoring and outshot the Knights 13-6. The second period ended the same as the first: a 2-0 Monarch lead.

Unlike the first two periods, the Knights scored first in the third period. Just five minutes into the final period of play, Arcadia scored its first goal of the game, but the Monarchs retaliated quickly with another goal of their own. Hersant scored his first of two goals just barely over a minute after the Knights found the back of the net and was assisted by Kent Lee. Hersant found his second goal much later in the game with nearly two minutes remaining. Arcadia pulled their goalie and left the cage empty to add another skater in hopes of scoring again, but after regaining possession in the Knights' attacking end, Hersant sent a shot down to the complete opposite end of the rink to give the Monarchs their last goal of the game. King's ultimately won 4-1 over Arcadia. 

While Tyler Sayger may have been unable to finish the game after being substituted for injury, he still led the Monarchs in goal with 24 saves in just over 43 minutes of play. Matt Bidini went in for King's then and saved 6 shots while in goal. Wyatt Allan and Erik Borschevsky also led the defense with two saves each.

The Monarchs will travel to Colmar, PA, tomorrow to play Arcadia again tomorrow evening at 7 pm in the Knights' home rink, Hatfield Ice Arena for the second of their two-game UCHC series

- - MONARCHS - -