The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team solidified its lead in ECAC Hockey this weekend, bringing home its fifth and sixth consecutive wins against Colgate and Cornell, respectively, during the Bobcats’ road trip to New York.
On Friday night, Quinnipiac beat Colgate 5-3. Brandon Wong started the scoring in the first period. After redirecting a pass sent from teammate Zach Hansen, Wong was able to slide the puck to the left of Raiders’ goalie Charles Long. This goal was Wong’s 54th of his career. Colgate’s Brian Day evened the score about four minutes into the second period with a shot that deflected off Bobcat goaltender Eric Hartzell’s skate.
The Bobcats responded with three unanswered goals in the second period, one by Jean-Marc Beaudoin and a pair by Jeremy Langlois.
Colgate did not let up easily, as it scored two goals in the first 10 minutes of the third period, to cut the deficit to one. Sophomore forward Yuri Bouharevich added an insurance goal late in the third, giving Wong tallied his second assist of the night.
“We had some injuries to overcome in this game, and had to shorten our bench, but we did a great job of that and battled,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said. “We’re skating hard and playing very well right now.”
On Saturday night, Quinnipiac upset No. 5 Cornell, 3-2, to improve to 6-0-0 in ECAC Hockey and 10-1-0 overall. The Bobcats were up against the nation’s top offense (4.50 goals per game) before playing Quinnipiac. However, goaltender Dan Clarke stopped 23 of 25 shots he faced.
Freshman defenseman Zach Davies struck first for Quinnipiac, scoring a power play goal in the seventh minute of action. A shot by Eric Lampe was deflected by Cornell’s Ben Scrivens, and a failed clearing attempt sent the puck to Davies’ stick. Davies blasted a shot from the slot and put Quinnipiac in the lead. Just before the end of the first period, Mike Atkinson skated through the Cornell defense and fired his shot over Scrivens’ left shoulder.
With just under nine minutes to play in the second period, Reese Rolheiser knocked in a rebound past Scrivens.
Cornell’s Sean Collins and John Esposito both scored in the last five minutes of the game, slimming Quinnipiac’s lead to one, but the Bobcats came away with the victory.
“I’m proud of our effort tonight,” Pecknold said. “We competed hard for the entire weekend. It’s always exciting to get a win against a top-five team.”
Quinnipiac returns to Thanksgiving break action on Wednesday, Nov. 25 when it hosts Princeton on Wednesday night. Next, the Bobcats host the University of Massachusetts on Saturday, Nov. 28 at 3 p.m. Saturday’s matchup will be televised live on NESN.
