The Niagara men’s hockey team dropped its first game of the 2012-13 season after losing a 10-2 decision to the Colgate Raiders on Tuesday evening at Starr Rink.
Senior Giancarlo Iuorio and sophomore Mike Benedict scored the lone goals for the Purple Eagles (0-1-1), as the Raiders (1-0-0) kept Niagara on its heels all game, outshooting the Purple Eagles by a 35-20 margin.
“From start to finish it’s a night we’re going to have to forget in a hurry,” head coach David Burkholder said. “For whatever reason we came out flat and couldn’t match their intensity and before you know it we were out of the game.”
Colgate jumped out to an early 1-0 lead at the 18:54 mark of the opening stanza when Darcy Murphy took a pass off Joe Wilson before ripping a high-rising shot between the top left post and the shoulder of starting NU goaltender Colby Drost. The Raiders continued to control the tempo of play, keeping Drost busy as the sophomore had to push aside nine Colgate shots, while allowing the Purple Eagles to only one shot in the first nine minutes.
Niagara was finally able to get the offense rolling just before the midway point of the period. A blocked shot was picked up by Ryan Rashid to the right of Colgate goaltender Eric Mihalik. The junior slid a pass to Patrick Divjak at the top of the blueline. Divjak returned the pass and Rashid connected with Iuorio at the top of the slot who roofed the puck for his first tally of the season.
The Raiders pushed their lead back to a goal with 31 seconds left to play in the first period after Kurtis Bartliff snuck the puck between Drost’s pads.
The second period solidified the win for the Raiders, as Colgate tallied three goals in the opening four minutes and added another two before heading into the second intermission.
Freshman Tylor Spink started the scoring spree after picking up a Niagara turnover and netted a top shelf wrister. Twenty-three seconds later, NU went down a man after Chris Lochner was called for interference, and the Raiders capitalized on the man-advantage off the stick of Billy Rivellini.
Billy Rivellini, Bartliff and Borkowski each added another tally in the game, while Mike McCann and Kyle Baun grabbed his first of the season to make it a 10-1 game.
Drost made 15 saves, before Cody Campbell stepped in, pushing aside 10 Colgate looks on net to finish the game.
The Purple Eagles start conference play this coming weekend (Oct. 13) when Niagara welcomes the Mercyhurst Lakers to Dwyer Arena on Saturday, Oct. 13 for a 7:05 p.m. puck drop.
