After Kent State’s hockey team took a 5-4 lead late in the second period, Duquesne scored the game’s last five goals and beat the Flashes 9-5 Sunday.

KSU trailed 4-2 going into the second period. With 5:46 left in the period, senior forward Tommy Kilway scored two goals and senior forward Joey Gallo scored one to give the Flashes the lead. Three minutes later, Duquesne tied the game 5-5.

In the third period, the Dukes scored with 9:24 to go, then added another goal three minutes later. Kent State pulled its goalie to add another attacker, but Duquesne scored two more goals at the empty KSU net.

“We gave up (on) a lot of odd-man rushes today,” coach Zachary Nowak said. “We were playing really well to start the game and dominating in our offensive zone, but we let a lot of things slip past us.”

Odd-man rushes happen when the offensive team outnumbers the defensive team when it enters the attacking zone.

The Flashes are 3-2-1 in the season and 0-1-0 in the College Hockey Mid-American league. Duquesne is 4-5-1 and 2-1-0 in the league. Kent State is in sixth place in the league; Duquesne is fourth.

“The anticipation was very high for this game,” sophomore goalie Nick Beck said. “It was our first league game of the season. Going into it, everyone knew it was important and that it would be a battle.”

Beck made 21 saves on the night. Duquesne had 33.

Kilway said it “seems like we took them a little easy.”

“We had a good week at practice, but that didn’t really translate over to the game,” he said.

Nowak said he hoped the game was a “learning moment.”

“I hope we can be resilient, bounce back, and be a team that learns from these lessons,” Nowak said.

The Flashes play Mercyhurst at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4 at the Kent State Ice Arena and at Indiana University of Pennsylvania Nov. 5.

Mia Cadle is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].