The St. Paul's School "Big Red" traveled to the seacoast this afternoon to take on New Hampshire's other "Big Red," Phillips Exeter Academy, for a 5:00 PM puck drop. At the end of fifty-four minutes of play, the home team skated off their ice with a well-earned 3-1 victory. 
 
In the first period, Exeter did a nice job of stymying the "Big Red" offense by consistently breaking up the St. Paul's School attack in the neutral zone, causing the Millville skaters to retreat into their defensive zone to defend again before they could move onto the offense. St. Paul's School goaltender Blake Truchon '26 (South Burlington, VT) did a great job in the net and gave his teammates every chance to win the period, but the score remained 0-0 after the first eighteen minutes of play.
 
In the second period, St. Paul's found better five-on-five offensive rhythm; yet again, the Exeter skaters stayed with their defensive structure, and any offensive opportunity the "Big Red" was able to generate never fully materialized to get a puck behind the Exeter goaltender. A third of the middle period consisted of special teams or four-on-four play between the two teams. To Exeter's credit, midway through the second period, they took advantage of a "Big Red" penalty in the offensive end and scored the game's first goal on the power play, which was the only goal of the second period.
 
Halfway through the third period, St. Paul's School's Ryan Vohra '26 (Valley, NS) tied the game at one apiece when he fired the puck past the Exeter goaltender after collecting his rebound in the right half of the slot, just above the hash marks of the right face-off circle. Vohra's goal lifted the "Big Red" bench, and the team played with increased intensity. Unfortunately, the "Hockey Gods" had a different fate in store for the St. Paul's School "Big Red." Three minutes after Vohra's goal, Exeter pounced on a defensive Millville miscue and scored their second goal of the game with seven minutes to play. The St. Paul's School skaters played tenaciously to get the game-tying goal, but the Exeter defense held strong, and their goaltender made several great saves in the closing five minutes of play. With less than a minute to play in regulation and Truchon pulled (32 saves on 34 shots) from the St. Paul's School net for an extra attacker, Exeter scored their third and decisive goal into the empty net to ice the game and earn a 3-1 victory.
 
The "Big Red" is back in action tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, January 11, at 3:15 PM in the Hockey Center against the Hotchkiss School "Bearcats" from Lakeville, CT.