BOX SCORE

CLINTON, N.Y. -- The Babson College ice hockey team closed out its 2009-2010 regular season with a tough 4-3 overtime loss at Hamilton College in an ECAC East/NESCAC game on Saturday. The Beavers, who led 3-0 after senior Shane Farrell's (West Warwick, R.I.) second goal of the contest early in the second period, fell to 12-11-2 overall and 9-9-1 in the ECAC East.

Bryan Kelly '12 finished with two goals, for Hamilton, including the winning score in overtime. On the game-winner, Anthony Scarpino '12 carried the puck over the blue line and dropped it off for Kelly, who lifted a wrist shot into the back of the net from the top of the left faceoff circle. The goal was Kelly's ninth this season. Scarpino ended up with two assists on the afternoon.

After a scoreless first period, Babson (12-11-2, 9-9-1 ECAC East) grabbed a 2-0 lead with a pair of power-play goals 17 seconds apart in the second period. Farrell scored the first one with 5:23 left in the period while the Beavers enjoyed a two-man advantage. Senior Chris Wood (Medford, Mass.) followed with his 11th goal on the second assist of the game for classmate Liam Chatterton (Staten Island, N.Y.) at 14:54. Hamilton pulled starting goalie Ian Stearns '10 in favor of Scott Hefferman '11 after the second goal. Stearns finished with 19 saves.

Farrell gave Babson a 3-0 lead with an empty-net goal 2:12 into the third period. The Beavers took two penalties 15 seconds apart within the first 40 seconds of the period. Moments later, the Continentals pulled Hefferman for a sixth skater and a three-man advantage. The move backfired when Farrell collected the puck in his defensive zone and fired a shot down the ice and into the empty net for his fourth goal.

Hamilton started its comeback at 3:27 of the third when Chris Lorenc '10 scored his team-leading 13th goal during a power play. Kelly made it a one-goal game with 7:59 remaining while the teams skated 4-on-4. Joe Houk '13 tied the score with his fourth goal on a nifty move with 5:31 left. Houk carried the puck into the offensive zone, lifted it over a Babson defender's stick in the left circle and swept a backhander past freshman goalie Zeke Testa (Wellesley, Mass.).

Testa, who entered the game with a 1.96 goals against average and .933 save percentage, stayed on the ice for a few minutes after a collision with Lorenc in the crease during the second period. The rookie netminder stayed in the game, however, and finished with 32 saves.

Hefferman turned away all 19 shots he faced for Hamilton, including one in overtime. The Beavers held a 41-36 advantage in shots.

Despite dropping their fourth contest in a row, the Beavers still managed to clinch the second seed in next week's ECAC East Tournament. As a result, Babson will host seventh-seeded UMass-Boston in the conference quarterfinals next Saturday, February 27, at 7 p.m. It will be a rematch of last year's ECAC East championship game, which the Beavers won in overtime, 4-3, and it will be the first quarterfinal meeting between the two teams since 2008, when the visiting Beacons stunned Babson, 4-1.

NOTE: Portions of this story taken from a Hamilton College press release.