RUTLAND, Vt. – The Vermont State University Castleton men's hockey team fell late to UMass Boston 5-4 on Saturday. The Beacons improved to 5-8-1 in the New England Hockey Conference. Castleton dropped to 1-12-1 in the conference. 

The Spartans opened the scoring with Josef Vyvial cutting back and making a pass to Cam Reid who dangled past a defender and sniped the corner to give Castleton the lead in under 90 seconds of play.

As Castleton tried to reset and break out from their end, Boston's Chris Repmann intercepted the puck and scored his third goal of the series to tie the game at one heading into the second period.

Charles Watson made his second start of the season and was solid for the Spartans. He stopped a career-high 42 saves in Saturday's contest.

Halfway through the second, the Beacons found their second of the game to take their first lead of the game.

To close out the second period, Andrew Stefura fought behind the net and was able to get a pass in front to Jackson Edwards who buried the puck into the net to tie the game at two.

The Beacons started the third with a goal to give them the lead once again. 

Castleton responded quickly with a quick passing play from Zach Papapetros and Luke Chakrabarti to connect with Zach Trempner in front of the net and slot home his shot on the powerplay to bring them back to level.

After a back-and-forth battle between each side looking to find the go-ahead goal, the Spartans took the lead with Edwards and Vyvial setting up Stefura for his fifth goal of the season.

The Beacons were able to rally behind Michael Krupinski who scored two late goals to put Boston ahead and give them the victory over Castleton. 

VTSU Castleton will host its fourth annual Breaking the Ice on Mental Health on Friday, January 31, against NEC at 7 p.m.