Pioneers swarm for dominating win over Manhattanville in UCHC Quarterfinals

The UC men's ice hockey team began its conference title defense with a convincing offensive explosion against the Valiants in the UCHC Tournament Quarterfinals.

Defense in the u-c-h- c quarterfinals tonight against manhattanville.

The banners hanging in the rafters at the adirondack bank center - the pioneers hoping to add more - going for their third conference championship in the past four years.

--- utica came out flying from the opening face-off.

The story of the first - valiants goalie alexei masanko who was sensational.

Pioneers throwing everything at him - lots of traffic in front but he stops it all.

U-c outshot manhattanville 17-2 in the period but we're scoreless after one.

--- in the second - pioneers keep the foot on the gas.

They break through five and a half minutes in.

Dylan mcmahon - with the deflection and then puts home the rebound to get utica on the board.

--- about eight minutes later - u-c on the power play.

Jason dobay - takes the space - gets to the dot and rips it inside the far post.

That pioneers power play is lethal.

It's 2-0.

--- just over two minutes later - off a long rebound - buster larsson - in the high slot unleashes a rocket.

Slapshot top shelf.

It's 3-zip and the floodgates are open.

--- two minutes after that - john moncovich makes it 4-0 and with under a minute to play - he puts home another.

A rebound off the end boards.

Pioneers score five goals in the middle frame... (((score))) ...they tack on four more in the third - and absolutely run away with this one 9-0 to advance to the conference semifinals.

Gary heenan: it's just chemistry in the locker room right now.

We have that feeling that we really grabbed last year, it took a little while this year but the guys are really feeling it in the room.

There's a lot of confidence, there's a lot of love in there, they really trust each other.

We could've easily gotten frustrated in the first period out shooting them 17 to 2 but we didn't let them off the hook, we came out in the second and seized the game.

To their credit their goalie was awesome in the first period.

We didn't think they could keep to our pace so absolutely we were just trying to keep the pace at a level that they are not used to or accustomed too.

They haven't played us yet this year so we wanted to be pedal down and make sure we had the wheels going.

Heenan looking authentic - nose a bit nicked up.

So the pioneers now move on to the u-c- h-c semis where they will host elmira at the aud on friday .

The utica comets have had ten straight