PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—Hobart College senior attackman Frank Brown scored the game-winning goal 18 seconds into overtime to give the Statesmen an 8-7 Northeast Conference victory at Saint Joseph's University this afternoon. It was his second goal of the game and 100th point of his career.
 
Hobart (5-6, 2-1) won just six of the day's 18 faceoffs, but junior J Andrew Spallanzani scooped up the most important faceoff to start OT. He ran the ball into the offensive zone and Hobart called timeout. On the restart, sophomore Bryan Hancock faked a handoff to a teammate behind the cage and then fed Brown as he raced down the right alley. Brown's shot from just off the crease beat SJU goalie T.J. Jones for his 67th career goal, tied with Jason Ouellet '01 and Sam Miller '12 for ninth place among Division I Statesmen.
 
Senior midfielder Sean Donnelly and sophomore attackman Chris Aslanian led Hobart with three points apiece. In addition to Brown, Hancock and senior midfielder Max Romm also had two points. Spallanzani was 4-of-6 at the X. Brown also had a team-high four ground balls while senior defenseman Arik Andreen logged a game-high four caused turnovers. In goal, senior Jackson Brown made 17 saves, one shy of his season-high, to pick up his 21st career win.
 
Jones also stood tall in the cage. He was a wall in the first half, ringing up 11 saves before the intermission and finishing the day with 20 stops. The Hawks (3-8, 0-3) got a game-high five points from Chris Blewitt on four goals and an assist. Danny Manning was 12-of-18 on faceoffs and collected a game-high eight ground balls.
 
Blewitt helped the Hawks race out of the gate, scoring all of his goals in the first 19 minutes of the game. He scored the first two goals of the game as SJU built a 3-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. Aslanian, assisted by Donnelly, got Hobart on the board less than two minutes into the second quarter, but Blewitt answered with consecutive goals to stretch the home team's lead to 5-1.
 
After his fourth goal, Hobart made a couple of defensive adjustments, including putting senior defenseman Grant Soucy on Blewitt. The move worked as Soucy limited Blewitt to just a single assist in the final 41 minutes of the game.
 
Hobart's comeback started about two minutes before halftime, when senior defensive midfielder Noel McGuinness scored in transition for his first career goal. The Statesmen trailed 5-2 at the half.
 
The third quarter belonged to Hobart as Donnelly, Frank Brown, and Hancock accounted for all of the scoring in the frame. Hancock's man-up goal came with just one second left in the third quarter and tied the game at 5.
 
Aslanian gave the Statesmen their first lead on his 15th goal of the year less than a minute into the fourth quarter. Kyle Cain tied the game with just under nine minutes remaining in regulation, but junior Mason Burr hit the back of the net to give Hobart a 7-6 advantage. Cain again tied the score, this time with an extra-man goal at the 4:20 mark. Both Jones and Jackson Brown made saves in the final three minutes to necessitate overtime.
 
Hobart improved to 5-3 all-time against Saint Joseph's, including a 4-1 mark in Philly. Today's game was the third contest between the Statesmen and Hawks to go to overtime. In 2014, Hobart won 10-9 in double overtime in the semifinals of the NEC Tournament. A year later during the regular season, SJU slipped past the Statesmen 7-6 in OT.
 
Hobart will return home for its next contest, hosting Bryant University (7-5, 3-1) on Saturday, April 15. The opening faceoff at Boswell Field is scheduled for noon.