CORNELL CLINCHES THIRD STRAIGHT CLEARY CUP
By Warren Kozireski —
Seventh ranked Clarkson traveled to second ranked Cornell Saturday night, but the Big Red one night earlier clinched the regular season ECAC title with a 5-0 shutout of St. Lawrence while the Golden Knights needed a late goal to tie Colgate 1-1.
Cornell freshman Ben Berard netted his first collegiate hat trick—two on the power play—one night after being a healthy scratch to lead them to a 5-1 win.
“It feels pretty good; I was excited to be back in the line-up,” Berard said. “After being out of the line-up you always want to come back and have a good game. Coach knew I had two (goals), so he told me to go stand in front of the net and try to bang one in and it worked out.”
Junior goaltender Matthew Galajda entered the contest with 197:27 consecutive minutes of shutout hockey, but that ended at 5:25 of the first for 202:50—the sixth longest in Cornell history.
The team honored seniors Jeff Malott, Yanni Kaldis and Noah Bauld after the game.
The three straight Cleary Cups is also a program first and they become the first ECAC school to accomplish it since Harvard in 1992- 1993, 1994.
“It’s been a hard year; we worked 352 days to get to where we were last year and now the real fun begins with the playoffs and everyone is looking forward to that opportunity,” Cornell head coach Mike Schafer said.
The Big Red earn a week off with the first-round bye and will host the lowest remaining seed after the first round the weekend of March 13-15.
