RUTLAND, Vt. – One week after upending No. 10 Norwich, the Castleton men's hockey team looked to upset another top-10 team in their matchup with No. 7 Babson Saturday afternoon, but were unable to contain a potent Beavers attack falling 4-1 in front of the home crowd.
 
The contest was much closer than the final score suggests, as the Spartans (2-5-0, 2-2-0 NEHC) narrowly lost the shot (34-36) and faceoff (40-35) battles before allowing two scores in the game's final five minutes to seal the loss.
 
Andrew Stefura scored his team-high third goal of the season, all of which have come on Castleton's red-hot powerplay that has now found the back of the net with the man advantage in four of their last five games. Dominic Rodrigue earned his second start of the season in net after making 61 saves in the two sides' 3-3 draw from a season ago, allowing three goals and making 32 saves in Saturday's match.
 
The Spartans found themselves with an opportunity to take the early lead in the first after consecutive Babson (5-1-1, 4-1-1 NEHC) penalties gave Castleton a 4-on-3 powerplay, but shots from Zach Trempner, Zach Papapetros, Romeo Torain and Stefura were all turned aside by the Beavers' netminder. Instead, it was Babson taking a 1-0 lead with three minutes to go in the opening period on a score from Chris Rooney.
 
The Beavers doubled their lead three minutes into the second period to make it 2-0, before Stefura struck for the third time in four games. Balint Mesterhazy controlled the puck at the top of the zone and rifled a shot toward net. After the initial save was made, Stefura took another shot that went wide but found the stick of Trempner, who carried it toward net and sent a backhanded pass to Stefura for the one-timer. The assists was Trempner's team-high sixth of the season, ranking him in the top-five of the conference.
 
Castleton continued to apply pressure in the third period looking for an equalizer, but with under five minutes to go it was the Beavers scoring on a shot that deflected off a Spartan stick and past Rodrigue to make it a 3-1 game. The Spartans pulled Rodrigue with 1:30 to go, but an empty-netter with 30 seconds left on the clock sealed a hard-fought 4-1 loss for Castleton.
 
Next up for the Spartans is the Terry Moran Invitational where they will look to repeat as champions after going 2-0 a season ago. They begin the tournament Friday, November 25 with a matchup against Franklin Pierce at 7 p.m.