Cornell didn’t get many scoring chances, but took advantage of two of them and held off St. Lawrence 2-1 in a ECAC Hockey game at Lynah Rink on Friday night.
The battle of two nationally ranked teams came down to a save by Big Red goalie Mitch Gillam on a Saint penalty shot midway through the third period and Cornell’s ability to break up some potential Saint scoring plays in the defensive end. The 13th-ranked Saints fall to 8-4-2 overall and 3-2-1 in the ECAC while Cornell, 7-1-2 and 5-1-1 in the ECAC improved to 4-0-2 in its last six.
Senior wing Teemu Tiitenen scored the only goal of the first period as he broke in on Saint goalie Hayton from the left side and slipped a shot under the crossbar from point blank range just 2:10 into play. The Saints, who had some good pressure on their first couple of shifts of the night, didn’t get much going until the final five minutes of the first, but when they did get scoring chances, Cornell goalie Mitch Gillam was there to turn them away.
The Saints outshot Cornell 11-7 in the second period, but again the Big Red came away with the only goal of the period. Junior center Jake Weidner scored it at the 15:32 mark, his second of the year, as he skated in and snapped a shot which went off the leg of a Saint defender, caught the inside of the post and ended up behind Hayton.
“We really didn’t give them much and I think both their goals were goals that Kyle would like to have back,” said Saint coach Greg Carvel.”We had them for only four scoring chances in the first two periods and we played really well in the third. I thought we dominated and had most of the scoring chances in the third.
“They’re tough…they make it really hard to break out on them and then they get back in the neutral zone, get in position and make it difficult to get through the neutral zone.. So you have to dump pucks in and work hard to get it back against their defense. It’s a grind of a game and you are going to have to work hard to get scoring chances. I thought we created enough, but Gillam made the saves he needed to. It was a good college game…we could have won, but it went their way tonight.”
The Saints cut the Cornell lead to 2-1 2:12 into the final period when Gavin Bayreuther scored his fifth of the year on a shot from the center point, sending a waist high shot inside the right post from Woody Hudson and Ryan Lough. SLU kept the pressure on in the period and were awarded a penalty shot when a Cornell defender covered the puck in the crease in a scramble with 11:10 to go. The Saints thought the original shot was in, but it was ruled no goal on a video review. Lough took the penalty shot and tried to put it between Gillam’s pads. Gillam got enough of the puck to slow it down and while he lost track of it, it died before it could trickle across the goal line.
Cornell packed it in in front of Gillam with its huge defense and while the Saints had some good looks, they couldn’t get another one through. Hayton left for an extra attacker with 36 seconds to play, but Cornell was able to hold them off for the win.
Hayton finished with 18 saves for the Saints while Gillam had 26 saves for Cornell. SLU had a 27-20 overall edge in shots on goal.
