White, Milosz shine as BC routs Providence Friday

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- Friday night was not the most ordinary of nights for the Boston College Eagles.

Freshman Colin White had just returned to campus from the World Junior Championship in the last 24 hours and his new classmate Ian Milosz was plugged in to make his first start in goal.

White scored his first collegiate hat trick and added an assist, while Milosz made 24 saves as the Eagles coasted to a 7-3 win over defending national champion and third-ranked Providence at Kelley Rink.

Under some of the most unusual circumstances, the Eagles came through with an impressive performance and tied a season-best scoring output.

"Mentally, we were really solid as a team," BC head coach Jerry York said after his team jumped to 13-4-1 on the season and 7-1-1 in Hockey East play. "Certainly the addition of Colin and Miles Wood to our lineup tonight produced a completely different type of environment in our most recent loss to Providence (a week ago Monday)."

The Eagles carried a 2-1 lead out of the first intermission, while Milosz stopped nine of the ten shots he faced in his first collegiate period.

White picked up right where he left off in the first half at the 6:38 marker. The Hanover, Mass., native scored his ninth goal of the season on a rebound, assisted by junior Ryan and freshman Casey Fitzgerald, from just outside the left circle.

Sophomore Alex Tuch doubled the BC lead at 12:43, taking a drop feed off Zach Sanford's faceoff win and going bar down on Providence's Nick Ellis.

The Friars cracked Milosz at 18:12 as defenseman John Gilmour wound up from the far point and shot through a sea of bodies at the front of the net.

Milosz got off to an uneasy start, but seemed to settle into the game following the Friars' opening goal of the game. The North Grafton native, starting in place of injured Thatcher Demko, made nine saves each in the first two periods.

"Coming off the (Boston) Junior Bruins and playing arguably one of the best teams in the country, I thought he gave us a phenomenal performance," York said. "We (had) to tighten up and play harder because we've just seen Ian for two practices. We were depending on Thatcher (Demko) for so long here, and all of a sudden a brand new guy steps in."

Providence fell into more than a two-goal hole for the first time all season in the opening half of the second period as White and Tuch each scored their second goals of the game.

Just 32 seconds into the period, White followed up Scott Savage's point shot and batted a loose puck out of mid-air on the doorstep of Ellis' crease. Ellis had trouble controlling Savage's initial shot and the puck bounced up in the air and came down following White's emphatic connection.

"I had to get to the front of the net a lot," White said. "Our team was getting shots through tonight, getting pucks on net. That's been a focus all year for us. I thought we did a good job of that tonight with a couple rebound goals tonight. All the credit goes to the team tonight."

The visitors had killed 20 consecutive penalties before White's second of the night, but Tuch dented that mark even more at 7:55. White fed a beautiful puck to the front of the net, leaving Tuch a wide open net for his seventh goal this year.

Friar assistant captain Nick Saracino made it a 4-2 game at 11:26, taking sophomore Brian Pinho's feed and sneaking his sixth goal of the season between Milosz's wide open five-hole.

Austin Cangelosi found his way onto the scoresheet for the first time in the game at 13:45. Off a feed from Ryan Fitzgerald, the junior burst down the left wing and tucked his eighth goal of the season short side on Ellis.

PC sophomore defenseman Jake Walman added his team-best 20th point in his first game back from a shoulder injury, taking a hard shot from the point just 49 seconds into the third period.

"I thought he did a pretty good job tonight keeping it simple," Friar head coach Nate Leaman said after his team's first regulation loss since Feb. 13, 2015. "I thought he could have moved the puck a little bit quicker earlier in the game, but that's just getting into it. I thought he was a little bit of a bright spot tonight."

That was as close as the Friars would come, however. White finished off his hat trick at the 3:47 mark, picking up a loose rebound in front of relief goaltender Hayden Hawkey's crease.

The elder Fitzgerald added his fourth point and BC's third man-up goal of the night at 7:36, whacking a loose puck out of the crease to follow up Miles Wood's initial attempt.