Men's Hockey | 1/15/2010 9:38:25 PM

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STORRS, CT – The RIT (13-8-1, 13-2-1 AHA) men's hockey team scored two power play goals, a short-handed goal and an empty-net goal, and senior goaltender Jared DeMichiel (Avon, CT/) posted his second straight shut out as the Tigers downed the Connecticut (2-16-3, 2-11-3 AHA) Huskies 4-0 in Atlantic Hockey Association action on Friday night.

RIT head coach Wayne Wilson won his 200th career game behind the RIT bench. Wilson is the all-time leader in wins at RIT and is 200-99-25 in 11 seasons with the Tigers.

“I'm glad we got a win,” said RIT Head Coach Wayne Wilson. “I've had a lot of great players over the years, and they're mostly responsible for this accomplishment. When you've been here 11 years and had the players we've had the wins are going to come.”

The Tigers improve their AHA unbeaten streak to 13 games (12-0-1) and have not lost a conference game since October 24, 2009 at Air Force.

Senior defenseman Alan Mazur (Burnaby, British Columbia/) assisted on three of the four RIT goals, and Mark Cornacchia (Unionville, Ontario/), Stevan Matic (Burnaby, British Columbia/), Tyler Mazzei (Kelowna, British Columbia/) and Brent Alexin (West Seneca, NY/) each had goals.

“I thought Tyler and Mark played a strong game for us,” said Wilson. “It was good to see a different group step and lead us to wins.”

RIT went 1-for-10 on the man advantage and scored their third short-handed goal of the season. The Tigers out-shot the Huskies 31-25 and held their power play to 0-for-6 on the evening.

The shutout is the third of the season and second straight for Jared DeMichiel (Avon, CT/) who has not allowed a goal since early in the third period of the Holy Cross game back on January 8, a stretch of 134:14.

RIT struck on a short-handed breakaway by Mark Cornacchia (Unionville, Ontario/) at 2:53 of the first period to take an early lead. He stole the puck from Justin Hernandez at the top of the RIT zone and broke in alone, beating Garrett Bartus with a low hard wrist shot that gave the Tigers an early lead.

RIT had a five-on-three advantage early in the second period but failed to convert. The Tigers fired five shots but only one was on net.

The Tigers took advantage on their next power play when Mazur skated the puck into the zone and found a streaking Matic. He one-timed a shot into the open net for a 2-0 RIT lead. The goal was Matic's fourth of the season and first in conference play. In all, RIT went 1-for-4 with the man advantage in the second period.

RIT made it 3-0 with their third special teams goal, and second power play goal of the game. Tyler Mazzei (Kelowna, British Columbia/) scored on a scrum in front of the UCONN net off assists from Matic and Mazur less than two minutes into the third period.

Brent Alexin (West Seneca, NY/) salted the game away with an empty net goal at 19:02 of the third. He intercepted an attempted breakout pass by a Huskies defenseman inside the UCONN zone and flicked a shot into the empty net to make it 4-0.

RIT swept Connecticut back in October at Frank Ritter Arena. The Tigers won game one 6-2, and 7-0 in game two. RIT came into Friday's game 6-3-1 versus UCONN since joining Atlantic Hockey and 11-5-1 all time versus the Huskies. The last time the Tigers traveled to Storrs they came away with a win and a loss back in November of 2008.

These same two teams will face one another in game two of the two-game series on Saturday night, January 16 at 7:05 pm in Storrs, Connecticut.