Another great crowd and another great outcome for the NJIT Highlanders hockey team - who are now 4-0-0 in league play and 5-0-0 overall.

It was quite a night for NJIT as they overcame a sluggish start to defeat the Maritime Privateers 8 - 1. The game was close as the teams traded goals midway through the first period. James Wintjen tucked in a rebound on the power play, with assists to Justin Gelesky (4 goals 1 assist) and Desi Fioravanti to give NJIT the lead, while Maritime answered in a little over a minute to tie the game. NJIT took the lead for good with a goal by Carmine DiCosmo assisted by Nick Naumovski and then added another on a breakaway by Kevin McMorrow off a beautiful feed from Chris Oertel and Miguel Dominguez, with just 17 seconds left in the opening period.

The Privateers regrouped during the intermission and came out strong, only to be turned back by the Highlander's net minder Yllano Tubijella. The teams traded shots throughout the period until just over a minute to go when the aggressive forechecking of Steve Shepherd forced a turnover that Joe Whitford scooped up behind the net and fed to a waiting Carmine DiCosmo fired it past the goaltender. Seeing crowd favorite DiCosmo score his 2nd of the game must have gotten the juices flowing for Gelesky as he went on a scoring spree that is rarely seen at any level of hockey.

Justin scored finished the scoring with 32 seconds left in the period with an assist by Chris Sala and then welcomed Maritime back in the 3rd period with a goal in the first minute of the period with an assist from Andrew Kaczur. If that wasn't enough he added a pair of shorthanded goals in a 20 second span late in the period. 4 goals in a row - 2 of them shorthanded!

The team will play an exhibition tomorrow against the Titans U-18 AAA midgets as they prepare for next weekend, during which DeSales University (8:00pm Friday) and the high-flying Skidmore Halfbreds (7:00pm Saturday) come to town.