The Clarkson Golden Knights trumped the Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team in a 5-3 victory Saturday night at the TD Bank Sports Center. It was the Bobcats’ fourth straight loss.
“[It’s] very frustrating, especially after [last night’s loss to St. Lawrence],” Quinnipiac captain Scott Zurevinski said. “We felt like we played 60 minutes and didn’t get rewarded for the work we put in. And then tonight, [Clarkson gets] off to an early lead, and it’s hard. It’s tough, especially on a young team, but at the end, it’s part of it.”
Clarkson’s Brandon DeFazio’s third-period hat trick propelled the Golden Knights, as it broke a 2-2 tie.
“You can’t win games when you give up that many goals,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said. “So I think our goaltending needs to be better and our team defense in front of our goalies needs to be better.”
Before the start of the third period, the Bobcats (7-8-1, 3-5-1 ECAC) and the Golden Knights (9-5-2, 4-2-1 ECAC) were tied at two. Halfway through the first period, Clarkson opened the scoring when Allan McPherson slipped past Quinnipiac’s defense and netted the puck.
Clarkson ended the game when Bryan Rufenach scored an empty-netter.
“The biggest turning point of the game was the first goal of the game,” Pecknold said. “We got our veteran defenseman [Zach Hansen] on the ice. He’s back, and just puck watches and allows a pretty simple play to turn into a breakaway. We were done for the whole first period, and we need our veteran guys and our better players to play better.”
Quinnipiac minimized the gap when Yuri Bouharevich scored his third goal of the season. At 11:31 of the second period, Spencer Heichman crossed the puck in front of Clarkson’s net to Bouharevich who ripped one past Clarkson goaltender Paul Karpowich.
The Bobcats continued to gain momentum when Jeremy Langlois picked up his first deflected shot and slipped the puck between Karpowich and the post at 1:07 of the third period for a power-play goal. DeFazio answered with his first two goals.
Quinnipiac’s Zach Davies capitalized on the Bobcats’ last power play when he rocketed a shot from the point past Karpowich.
As the Bobcats face Harvard Wednesday night, Zurevinski said the team is looking to start a run.
“We believe in each other and the coaching staff believes in us, and we know our fans believe in us, so we just got to find a way to turn around and hopefully we can get a streak going.”
Photo credit: Ilya Spektor
