HAMDEN — Wearing white and gold camouflage in a nod to servicepeople on Veteran’s Day, Quinnipiac men’s hockey showed courage Saturday night, triumphantly retaining the Heroes’ Hat in front of 3,625 screaming fans in a 5-2 hammering of Yale.
It was the Bobcats’ 13th-consecutive victory in The Battle of Whitney Avenue, as they continue their commitment to excellence against the Bulldogs, improving to 31-7-5 all time.
“Yale’s always a really tough opponent,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said. “There’s a lot of emotion that goes into this game every time we play them here or there. I thought we handled the adversity well.”
After the Bobcats jumped out to a 3-0 lead, two Yale goals pulled the Bulldogs within one before Quinnipiac scored twice in a minute and a half to put the game out of reach.
“We had the game in control and then all of a sudden, bang, it’s 3-2,” Pecknold said. “We just found a way to battle through. The crowd was rocking … the student section was awesome. It’s a nice win and we’ll move on.”
It took more than 25 minutes for either side to find the back of the net. Freshman forward Andon Cerbone broke the deadlock, ripping a shot top shelf on an early second period power play to give the hosts the lead.
“(I’m) on a power play with four other great players looking to make plays and take advantage of the opportunity given,” Cerbone said. “Quillan had a great net-front screen so I was able to see the back of the net and shoot the puck where I wanted it.”
It was the fourth-consecutive power play Quinnipiac converted on, and it would not be the only man-advantage goal the Bobcats scored in the period.
Ten minutes after Cerbone’s tally, junior forward Cristophe Tellier found classmate, linemate and name-mate Christophe Fillion in the slot for the latter’s fourth goal of the season.
Sandwiched between those goals was a strike from graduate student defenseman Jayden Lee, who found twine from the point.
“It’s one of those where you could see the puck go in the whole way,” Lee said.
Late second and early third period goals from Yale junior defenseman Connor Sullivan and senior defenseman Ryan Conroy made the game 3-2, but sophomore forward Sam Lipkin and freshman forward Mason Marcellus capitalized in transition shortly after to halt any momentum.
“There’s no panic,” Lee said. “They scored and there’s no panic on the bench, no one had any doubt, we all just knew we had to continue to put our foot on the gas pedal and keep chipping away, keep grinding away. We knew it wasn’t going to be an easy game and once we put those two in it was kind of game over.”
Lee had three points in the contest, as did junior forward Collin Graf, who put together a six-point weekend in his first games back from injury.
“He’s probably a top-five, top-three player in the country,” Pecknold said. “He certainly just creates so much time and space for himself and creates space for his teammates.”
Quinnipiac is back on home ice next weekend for a conference set against Cornell and Colgate. Puck drop for both games is set for 7 p.m.
