RUTLAND, Vt. – In their most dominant performance of the season, the Castleton men's hockey team scored six unanswered goals to take down Elmira College 6-2 at Spartan Arena Friday night.
 
Stone Stelzl, Zach Trempner, Jackson Edwards, and Andrew Stefura — who secured his first career hat trick with three goals — got in the scoring column as the Spartans outshot the Soaring Eagles 35-34 and converted on both of their powerplay opportunities. Between the pipes, Dominic Rodrigue put together a strong showing, holding one of the conference's top scoring teams to just two goals, denying 32 shots in his second win of the year.
 
Despite the final result, it was Elmira (11-10-1, 8-6-1 NEHC) taking the early lead in Friday's contest with goals midway into the first period and at the 1:48 mark in the second to put Castleton (7-15-0, 5-10-0 NEHC) down 2-0. After the Soaring Eagles' second goal, however, is when the offensive onslaught began for the Spartans.
 
Stelzl got things started for Castleton with the team's first powerplay goal of the night. Edwards controlled the puck at the right circle and sent it along the board to Cedrick Theodore. The freshman bounced the puck to Stelzl, who carried it into the slot and rifled it nearside and in to make it a 2-1 game.
 
Just under four minutes later, it was Stefura tying the game with his first of the evening. Edwards once again got involved at the end of his shift, stealing the puck and finding Trempner just inside the blue line. The sophomore sent a hard shot toward net that was saved initially, but there for the rebound was Stefura to level the game at two.
 
It looked as though the two sides would enter the second intermission tied, but Trempner gave Castleton the lead with 48 seconds to go in the period. Bryce Irwin gathered the puck after an Elmira shot went wide and sent an outlet pass to Trempner, who took on Elmira's goalie one-on-one and beat him to give the Spartans their first lead of the game.
 
The Spartans stayed hot early in the third period, as it was Edwards' turn to beat the Soaring Eagles' netminder at the 2:26 mark. Starting with the puck in their own zone Romeo Torain combined with Jason Atkinson to get it to a streaking Stelzl. The Minnesota-native carried it into the attacking zone and sent the puck across the ice toward Edwards, who one-timed it in for his fourth score of the year to go along with his three assists.
 
Castleton's fifth and sixth goals were scored by Stefura to give him his first career hat trick. His first of the period and second of the afternoon came on the powerplay where Irwin and Zach Papapetros worked the puck around before finding the sophomore who rifled a shot toward the near post and in. Down three goals, Elmira pulled their keeper with two minutes to go, allowing Stefura to score an empty-netter to give him three on the night and the Spartans their highest goal total of the season in the 6-2 win.
 
Castleton will look to ride this momentum into Saturday's senior night matchup with No. 2 Hobart College, with puck drop set for 4 p.m.