BABSON PARK, Mass.— Junior Jimmy Fallon (Milton, Mass.) produced his third hat trick of the season and 12 players recorded points as No. 11 Babson College skated to a 7-3 victory over the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Saturday afternoon in Little East Conference (LEC) men's ice hockey action on Senior Day inside the Babson Skating Center.

With the victory, the Beavers collected their eighth win in the last nine outings and improved to 18-3-2 overall and 13-2-1 in the LEC. Babson also clinched a first round bye in the upcoming Little East Tournament and home ice advantage for the semifinals. The Corsairs dropped their sixth game in a row and fell to 10-13-0 overall and 5-11-0 in conference games.

Senior Mike Stevens (Massapequa, N.Y.) tallied a career-high three points with a goal and two assists for the Beavers and classmate Ian Driscoll (Middleton, Mass.), junior Sean Senier (Melrose, Mass.) and sophomore Evan Brown (Little Silver, N.J.) notched one goal each in the win. Seniors Ryan Murphy (Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.) and Danny Cavanagh (Warwick, R.I.) contributed three assists each, classmate Cam Joslin (Cohasset, Mass.) chipped in with a pair of helpers, and fellow senior Nate Mueller (Rogers, Minn.) made 27 saves in goal for the Green and White.

First-years Kailin Chen (Beijing, China) and Chris Cardillo (Sandwich, Mass.) and senior Tyler Stewart (Pittsburgh, Pa.) scored goals for the visitors and junior Alex Walker (Latrobe, Pa.) finished with two assists. Senior Marshall McKallip (Pittsburgh, Pa.) had a busy day in goal and finished with 40 saves.

Babson jumped out to an early lead with a pair of goals in the first four minutes. Senier took a feed from Cavanagh along the left goal line and made a move around a UMD defender before lifting a backhander past McKallip for the first goal at 2:15. Fallon followed with a power play goal at 3:22, converting a pass from senior Egan Schmitt (Schuylerville, N.Y.) in the slot with a one-timer inside the left post.

The Beaver lead grew at 7:38 with another power play goal as Murphy pick-pocketed a Corsair player deep in the UMD zone and fed Driscoll, who buried a shot from the right face-off dot for a 3-0 lead.

Chen put the visitors on the board five minutes into the second period, stuffing the puck through Mueller's pads. The Beavers answered three goals in a four-minute span later in the period, pushing the lead up to 6-1. Fallon potted his second of the game from the left circle at 13:47, Brown followed with a goal from almost the exact same spot at 16:28, and Fallon finished off his hat trick at 17:31 with a backhander, also from the left circle, inside the far post.

UMass Dartmouth staged a small comeback attempt with a pair of goals midway through the third period. Cardillo converted an odd-man rush with a shot from the right side into an open net at 9:28, and Stewart buried a rebound for a power play goal at 11:58, cutting the margin to 6-3, but that's as close as the Corsairs would come. Stevens finished off the scoring for Babson with an empty-net goal in the final minute.

Babson finished with a 47-30 advantage in shots on goal and went 2-for-3 on the power play while UMD scored once on two attempts with the man advantage.

Both teams wrap up the regular season next weekend as Babson travel to New England College on Friday and Plymouth State on Saturday while UMD returns home to host Western Connecticut on Friday and Keene State on Saturday.

GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are unbeaten in their last seven games (6-0-1) against UMD and are 12-6-3 all-time against the Corsairs, although this year's games were the first two between the schools since 2016.
• Fallon, who is tied for second in the LEC in goals, finished off his third hat trick of the season following the ones he produced against Norwich back on November 14 and at Southern Maine on January 31.
• The Beavers finished the regular season 9-2-2 at the Babson Skating Center season, including 7-1-1 in conference games.
• Mueller recorded his 14th win of the season, which moves him into the top 10 in program history for single season victories.