HANOVER, N.H. – Three players recorded multiple assists and sophomore Owen Savory made 37 saves to lead the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) men’s hockey team to a 4-1 victory over Dartmouth College, on Saturday night at Thompson Arena. With the win, the Engineers improve to 17-15-2 overall (13-8-1 ECAC Hockey) and clinch the fourth seed and a bye in the ECAC Hockey Playoffs. The Big Green drop to 13-12-4 on the season (10-10-2 ECAC Hockey).
After a scoreless first period that included a total of 12 shots, RPI exploded for three goals in the second period to open up a 3-0 lead.
Senior Patrick Polino got things started with a rocket from the blue line at 9:33 of the frame. Taking a feed from freshman Cory Babichuk, Polino stepped up and buried his 11th goal of the season. A secondary helper went to classmate Will Reilly.
RPI doubled the lead at 14:00 even, when freshman Tristan Ashbrook converted a on a 2-on-1 rush with Reilly. Babichuk got the play started, sending the puck up the Reilly, who skated up the right side. He sent a low shot off the right pad of Dartmouth senior goaltender Adrian Clark that caromed right to Ashbrook for the tap-in – his ninth goal of the season.
Senior Todd Burgess then made it 3-0 just 28 seconds later, corralling his own rebound after taking a backhand feed from sophomore defenseman Kyle Hallbauer and netted an acrobatic goal for his team-leading 14th of the season. Sophomore Ture Linden picked up the first of his two assist on the night.
Dartmouth got on the board at 18:57 of the second, when Drew O’Connor potted number 21 on the season, from Daniel Warpecha and Brock Paul.
A back-and-forth saw the Engineers kill off an early penalty, before the Big Green lifted Clark for an extra skater with over five minutes to play.
Senior Jake Marrello capitalized by netting his seventh goal of the year 15:35, with the lone assist going to Linden, giving him eight in the last six games.
Savory (13-9-2) had eight stops in the first period, 16 in the second and 13 in the third. Clark (13-11-4) turned away 23 in the contest, including 12 in the second period, before giving way to Dean Shatzer over the final 2:13 of the contest.
RPI finished 0 for 5 on the man advantage, while Dartmouth was 0 for 6. The Engineers’ four-game winning streak is its first since the 2012-13 season – the last time they earned a first round bye, finishing second in the league.
The Engineers are idle until March 13-15, when they host an ECAC Hockey Quarterfinal series at the Houston Field House. Dartmouth welcomes Princeton to town for a best-of-three series next weekend.
