Payne And Bancroft Lead Offensive Explosion

Payne And Bancroft Lead Offensive Explosion

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (1/12/13)— Ben Payne and Jordie Bancroft scored two goals each and Concordia put up a season-high six goals in a 6-2 win over Augsburg. The victory gives the Cobbers the series sweep against the Auggies marking the first conference road sweep since January of 2011.

While Concordia used a smothering defense in their first two victories of the win streak, CC was all about offense on Saturday. The Cobbers scored the first three goals in the game and had five of the first six as they move into a tie for second place in the MIAC standings. Concordia is now 5-3 in league play and 8-8-1 overall.

Payne and Bancroft alternated scoring to give Concordia a 4-1 lead midway through the second period. Bancroft put the Cobbers on the board with his team-leading eighth goal of the season at 12:25 of the first period and then Payne made it 2-0 with under four minutes to go in the opening frame. Andrew Deters picked up the first of his two assists on Bancroft's first goal. He would then assist on Bancroft's second goal when the freshman forward scored at the 8:23 mark of the second period to give CC a 3-0 advantage.

Augsburg (3-11-1/1-5-0 MIAC) finally got on the board at 8:55 of the middle period before Payne reinstated the three-goal lead with his sixth goal of the season at 13:02.

Concordia would score two more goals in the third period to bring the final total to six. Caleb Suderman scored on the power play at 5:53 and then Adam Wiertzema finished off the goal barrage at 17:20.

Cobber goalie Chris Neamonitis had another outstanding game. He backed up his 42-save performance on Friday night by stopping 39 shots on Saturday. During the three-game win streak for the Cobber Neamonitis has stopped 126 shots, has a 1.33 GAA and a 97.0% save percentage.

Augsburg goalie Justin Lochner made 18 saves and was saddled with his ninth loss of the season.

Both teams scored one power play goal in the game. Concordia went 1-for-3 in their man-advantage situations while the Auggies were 1-for-6.

Concordia will now return to Moorhead for a six-game home stand. The Cobbers will host St. John's next weekend on Friday, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 19 at 2 p.m.