PESONY LOOKS SHARP IN RETURN AS SAINTS SKATE TO 4-4 TIE WITH NIAGARA

Feb. 2: North Country native Ted Cook continued to sizzle against St. Lawrence, but the Saints received a solid performance from senior captain Justin Pesony in goal and came away with a 4-4 tie in a end-to-end affair at Niagara University Saturday night.           

The Saints snapped a four-game losing streak with the tie, coming from two goals down to twice take a lead, but Cook and the Niagara power play came back each time. Cook, a former Salmon River player from Hogansburg, scored a hat trick in Saturday’s game and has now scored five goals in his last two outings against the Saints.            
The Saints are now 9-13-4 on the season and finished their non-league schedule at 5-5-2 while Niagara is now 15-8-2.           

“That was a pretty good hockey game,” said Saint coach Joe Marsh. “Both of us like to play wide open hockey and I think the fans enjoyed it. It would have been nice to come out with a win for Justin in his first game in quite a while, but he made some excellent saves against a very skilled offensive team.”           

Pesony made his first start since an Oct. 24 outing against Colgate in Albany, missing the next nine weeks after sustaining a high ankle sprain in practice. He did make a brief strategic appearance in the Cornell game On Jan. 18, but sat out the next weekend. He went up against a Niagara team which had a four game road win streak and victories in five of its last six outings and was averaging over four goals per game in that span.           

The first shot in Pesony’s direction went into the net as the Purple Eagles converted on a strange play. Egor Mironov flipped the puck high into the Saint zone and while Saint defender Zach Miskovic swung at the puck and missed, Cook didn’t, plucking the puck just off the ice and batting it into the far corner of the net for his ninth of the year at 0:52.           

Cook made it a 2-0 game at 11:28, scoring just four seconds after a Niagara power play had expired. The junior wing was all alone at the side of the net and Matt Caruana found him with a cross-crease pass for the slam-dunk goal as the returning Saint player had yet to get into the play.           

The Saints battled back in the final minute of the period as Kevin DeVergilio scored his seventh of the season with a rocket just under the crossbar. Casey Parenteau fed DeVergilio near the Niagara blue line and the junior wing walked down the slot before gunning the puck past NU goalie Juliano Pagliano with Zach Miskovic also assisting at 19:05.           

The Saints roared back to tie it in the second period and had chances to build a lead, outshooting the Eagles 18-5.           

Parenteau redirected a wrist shot through traffic by Shawn Fensel past Pagliano with Jared Ross also assisting at 6:42 of the second for Parenteau’s tenth of the season to make it a 2-2 game and the Saints went in front just under two minutes later when Travis Vermeulen tapped home his fourth of the season from Charlie Giffin and Alex Curran at 8:27.           

The Niagara power play, which came in at 21.6 percent, cashed in at 9:29 to tie the game at three as Kyle Rogers tipped the puck past Pesony.           

The Saints snapped a long power play drought on their third chance of the night to regain the lead as DeVergilio fed Matt Generous who relayed the puck to Brock McBride. McBride drifted through the slot and snapped a wrist shot between Pagliano and the post at 15:49 to give the Saints the 4-3 lead. It was the first power play goal in the last 29 chances for the Saints.           

Cook then completed his hat trick at 16:57, scoring in a scramble next to the net to tie it again on a power play and send the game into overtime.           

Both teams had big chances in the extra period including a post by Generous with 2:20 to go in the overtime and a big save by Pesony on Rogers with 18 seconds to go. The Saints flurried with 10 seconds left, but Pagliano kept them at bay.           

Pesony finished with 16 saves in the game and is now 1-1-1 on the season while Pagliano had 36 saves for the Purple Eagles.