Sophomore defenseman Terrance Amorosa connected on a blast from the blueline with 27.2 seconds left to lift the Clarkson University Hockey team to a thrilling 2-1 overtime victory against 13th-ranked Cornell before 2,355 fans at Cheel Arena on Friday night.
The Golden Knights, who extended their current unbeaten streak to four games (3-0-1), improve to 12-10-3 overall and 4-6-3 in ECAC Hockey play. Clarkson, which is 9-1-2 at Cheel this season, closes out a four-game home stand with Colgate on Saturday night.
Postgame audio from Head Coach Casey Jones
The Knights controlled play for much of the contest, outshooting Cornell (11-6-3, 6-5-2) 32-18, but needed the heroics of Amorosa to pull out the victory. Working on their fourth power play of the game, the Green and Gold finally converted on the man-advantage in the final seconds. Amorosa took a pass from junior blueline partner James de Haas at the top of the slot and fired in his second goal of the year to snap Clarkson’s four-game losing streak to the Big Red. Jordan Boucher picked up his second assist of the game with a pass back to de Haas at the point.
Senior goaltender Greg Lewis, who has allowed only four goals over the past four games, posted 17 saves to record his sixth win of the year.
Clarkson controlled the opening 20 minutes outshooting the Big Red 11-2 in the stanza. The Knights had two power-play opportunities in the period, but managed just one shot on net with the extra attacker.
Cornell broke the scoreless tie early in the middle frame when Mitch Vanderlaan tallied on a power play at 4:34. Vanderlaan finished off assists from Anthony Angello and Jeff Kubiak, chipping in a shot at the side of the net over the shoulder of Lewis and off the cross bar with nine seconds remaining in the man advantage.
With time winding down in the second, Clarkson finally broke through on a goal by de Haas with 18.5 seconds remaining in the period. de Hass connected for his third goal of the season on a shot from the top of the right circle after sophomore Nic Pierog found him at the point with a pass from behind the goal line. Boucher also assisted.
Clarkson was 1-of-4 on the power play, while Cornell was 1-of-3 with the man-advantage.
Mitch Gillam posted 30 saves for the Big Red, who saw its winless stretch reach five games (0-4-1).
