ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Third-seeded Nazareth College scored twice in each of the first two periods on the way to a 5-1 victory over the sixth-seeded Manhattanville College men's hockey team in the first round of the 2015 ECAC West Conference Tournament on Wednesday night at Bill Gray's Regional Iceplex.
 
Nazareth (12-9-5) advances to the semifinals of the ECAC West Tournament for the first time in program history and will face off with second-seeded Neumann on Saturday. Manhattanville (7-14-5) sees its season come to a loss.
 
Senior Brian Fleming (Saint John, N.B./Northern Cyclones (AJHL)) was a lone bright spot for Manhattanville, turning aside a season-best 44 shots in a losing effort. The 44 saves are second-most in Valiant postseason history, behind only the 50 of Jon Peczka '02 in the ECAC West semifinals against Elmira on March 1, 2002. The netminder also set a new program single-season record with 716 saves, surpassing the previous mark of 692 set by Pierre-Olivier Lemieux '12 in 2011-12.
 
Nazareth scored once early and once late in the opening frame, grabbing a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes. Ben Blasko gave the Golden Flyers an early lead with his sixth goal of the year 2:51 into the opening frame, and Tom Seravalli doubled the home team's lead with just 49 seconds left in the period.
 
The Golden Flyers added two more goals in the second period, as part of an attack that fired 21 shots on Fleming's net. John Power made it a three-goal game at the 5:19 mark, and Nazareth again struck in the final minute on C.J. Murray's tally with 27 seconds on the clock to take a four-goal lead into the third stanza.
 
Rocky Gruttadauria gave the home team a 5-0 lead before sophomore Teagan Waugh (Nanaimo, B.C./Powell River Kings (BCHL)) finally got the visitors on the board with 5:45 left in the contest, potting his team-best 10th goal of the year from senior Anton Racklin (Gothenburg, Sweden/Fairbanks Ice Dogs (NAHL)) and junior Matt Coleman (Brentwood, N.Y./Springfield Pics (EJHL)). With his assist, Racklin finishes his three-year career tied for second in program history for points by a defenseman with 55 in 75 games as a Valiant.
 
Nazareth finished the evening with a 49-23 edge in shots. The Golden Flyers went 1 for 5 on the man advantage on Wednesday night, while the Valiants were scoreless in three chances.
 
In addition to his single-season saves record, Fleming also finished his career third in total saves (1,442), sixth in save percentage (.910) and seventh in goals against average (2.92) at Manhattanville.