The Aquinas men's hockey team pushed its winning streak to three straight games and four of its last five, as the Saints swept a home-and-home series against Rochester this weekend (Mar. 5-6). AQ earned a 7-3 victory at Southside Ice Arena on Friday before a 4-2 win in Rochester Hills on Saturday.
 
With the weekend sweep, Aquinas improves to 6-5 overall and 4-1 in WHAC play. Rochester drops to 2-7 on the year and 2-6 in league games. 
 
On Friday night in Byron Center, Rochester held leads of 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 over the Saints. Darren Johnson tied the game with a second period goal to make it 3-3 heading into the third period. AQ then erupted for four goals in the final frame to pull away from the Warriors.
 
Mason Stewart delivered the eventual game-winner with 16:54 remaining and Luke Richesin added a tally four minutes later for the 5-3 lead. Kyle Truax (3:39) and Brandon Rozema (3:06) tacked on insurance goals late in the period to conclude the game-ending 5-0 scoring run.
 
Truax scored twice and added an assist, while Augustus Hickle scored AQ's opening goal. The Saints totaled 12 assists, including two each from Ryan Wolfe and Nick Long. Aquinas outshot Rochester by a 63-27 margin. Roman Malkov made 24 saves to earn the win in net.
 
After scoring the final five goals on Friday, AQ rattled off the first four goals in Saturday's win. Trent Kulczyk got the Saints on the board less than 90 seconds into the game and Brandon Schwandt made it 2-0 with a late goal in the first period.
 
Tom Davis scored at the 9:59 mark of the second stanza for the 3-0 lead and Truax made it 4-0 with a tally early in the third period. Rochester scored twice late in the third period to make the deficit appear closer than it was. 
 
Rozema assisted on a pair of goals, as the Saints outshot Rochester 49-26. Like Malkov, Nick Ottenbacher also made 24 stops for AQ in the victory.
 
This is the final week of the regular season for Aquinas, as the Saints play twice at home. AQ hosts Cleary on Wednesday (Mar. 10) and Concordia on Friday (Mar. 12), with both games set for 3:00 p.m. at Southside Ice Arena.