RAIDERS NET FIVE THIRD PERIOD GOALS

TO RALLY PAST SAINTS, 6-2

While things started well enough for St. Lawrence University’s hockey team, Colgate University’s Starr Rink continued to be a tough place for the Saints to play as Colgate came back from a 2-0 deficit to hand the Saints a 6-2 loss with a five-goal third period Friday night.

The Saints lost for the fifth straight time in Colgate’s rink and fell to 14-11-2 overall and 10-4-1 in the ECAC Hockey League. Colgate, picked as one of the top teams in the league in the pre-season, continued its climb up the standings and is now 12-13-4 overall and 6-6-3 in league play.

The Raiders took advantage of Saint defensive giveaways to stage their rally as three of the third period goals were walk-ins on Saint goalie Alex Petizian and two others were scored from right in front, one on a tip-in and the other was stuffed past the goalie at the goal post.

The Saints went into Friday’s game a little shorthanded as freshman wing Mike McKenzie was scratched due to a muscle pull and sophomore defenseman Shawn Fensel came down with the flu just prior to warm-ups and was unable to play.

“Those are two key guys to have out of the lineup,” said Saint coach Joe Marsh. “You have to give Colgate a lot of credit, they took advantage of their chances and pounced on every mistake we made. We need to try to regroup and see if we can come up with a couple of points in another very tough place to play at Cornell on Saturday.”

The Saints didn’t take long to grab the lead in Friday’s game as Sean Flanagan jammed home is fifth of the year on a second rebound with the game just 1:24 old. Kyle Rank started the scoring play with a shot on Colgate goalie Mark Dekanich which Dekanich stopped, but couldn’t cover. Flanagan hopped on the loose puck with and flipped it over the goalie’s shoulder with Andrzej Sandrzyk also assisting on the play.

It stood as the only goal in a first period dominated by the Saints, who had several good scoring chances taken away by Dekanich. The Saints outshot Colgate 14-10 in the first 20 minutes with Petizian blanking the Raiders at the other end of the ice.

Petizian came up big on Jason Williams early in the second period and got some help from defenseman Jared Ross when Ross cleared the rolling puck before it could get to the goal line. Both teams had several power play opportunities in the second period, but the penalty killers kept the shot totals low.

The Saints made it a 2-0 game right after fighting off a long stretch of Colgate pressure coming out of a Raider power play. Dekanich got tangled with one of his own players behind his net and Mark Wallmann centered the puck to Jordan Hack, who hit the empty net for his second of the year at 15:43 with Rank getting his second assist of the night.

The two goal lead lasted just 23 seconds as after the faceoff, Colgate scoring leader Tyler Burton took a pass from Marc Fulton, broke into the Saint zone and snapped a shot from the faceoff circle which eluded Petizian to make it a 2-1 game. The goal snapped Petizian’s shutout streak against Colgate at 96 minutes and opened the floodgates for the Raider offense.

The Raiders tied the game 2:51 into the third when a Saint defender tried to break up a pass at the SLU blue line with Colgate on a power play and Burton walked in all alone on Petizian, scoring his second of the night on a shot to the upper corner. The Raiders took the lead 1:11 later as Jesse Winchester was all alone in front and tipped the puck past Petizian off Eric Grieg’s goal mouth pass.

A bad pass by the Saints sent Colgate freshman Ethan Cox in all alone at 9:54 of the third and he scored Colgate’s third of the period and his first collegiate goal and Winchester walked around the Saint defense and jammed it in at 15:03 to make it a 5-2 game. Winchester completed his hat trick into an empty net at 18:35 with Burton picking up his fourth point on the night to make it a 6-2 final.

Dekanich finished with 26 saves for the Raiders while Petizian also had 26 for the Saints, who were outshot 32-28.