HAMDEN — Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey definitely took yesterday’s loss to heart, as the Bobcats showed a dominant performance in a 5-2 win over the Colgate Raiders Saturday night.
The night celebrated defenders Wil Gilson and Charlie Leddy and forwards Anthony Cipollone, Alex Power, Jeremy Wilmer and captain Victor Czerneckianair.
“It’s awesome,” Czerneckianair said. “It’s really surreal and it comes so fast. These are friendships that will last a lifetime and I’m grateful for it.”
In the last regular season home game, all five playing seniors got their moment on the starting lineup, with only Wilmer absent as he’s out for the rest of the season.
“It’s a really good senior class,” head coach Rand Pecknold said. “Obviously we miss (Wilmer) a lot, we’d love to have him, that’s unfortunate. Transfers have done a great job, wished we had them for more than one or two years. Small class but good and effective.”
Leddy joined the bench last game after missing for almost two months due to an injury, joining the line-up as an extra defender.
“I couldn’t be more thankful for the last two years,” Leddy said. “I’ve loved my old school but I’ve really fallen in love with everyone here.”
From the start of tonight’s game, the Bobcats skated circles around the Raiders which resulted in high tension between the players — if the 38 total penalty minutes between both teams and junior forward Mason Marcellus’ game misconduct serve as enough evidence.
Gilson sniped his fifth goal of the season on one of those powerplay opportunities to put the Bobcats on the board late into the first period. He wasn’t the only senior to get his moment of fame on the night, as Cipollone shot one past Colgate’s freshman goaltender Reid Dyck late in the second period.
“Cipollone has been unbelievable since Christmas,” Pecknold said. “He really elevated our team, I feel like.”
The leader of the pack was who else but once again freshman forward Ethan Wyttenbach. The 19-year old posted three points on the night with two assists and a breakaway goal, and with 54 points is now tied for the Quinnipiac’s Division I single-season points by a freshman record that hasn’t been touched in 26 years.
“He’s targeted, it’s not gonna stop, it’s only gonna get worse,” Pecknold said. “I thought he did a really nice job tonight, he handled a lot of that.”
Freshman center Markus Vidicek also found his way on the scoreboard and an empty netter from sophomore forward Aaron Schwartz only sealed Quinnipiac’s victory.
And even then, the score doesn’t really reflect how the game really went.
Quinnipiac outshot Colgate 75-38 and 43-18 on shots on goal. Multiple times throughout the game, the Raiders went as long as seven minutes without recording a single shot. It seemed like no matter what they tried, the Bobcats were right there to shut them down.
“It was a good win tonight, we battled hard,” Pecknold said. “We were a little ticked off on how we played last night, the boys responded well.”
It’s not like Colgate did nothing in the game. Sophomores forward Max Nagel and defender Michael Neumeier capitalized on the Bobcats’ mistakes and found the net behind junior goaltender Matej Marinov, but were still just a blip on an otherwise solid goaltending performance.
“Matej made some huge saves for us,” Pecknold said. “Colgate was really good. We weren’t perfect, but Matej bailed us out when we made mistakes.”
The return of sophomore center Chris Pelosi, who missed the last five games, should also be noted as the Hobey Baker nominee notched an assist in his first game back.
Quinnipiac now looks towards its last regular season weekend with games against Dartmouth and Harvard. If the Bobcats beat the Big Green in regulation, the Cleary Cup will travel back to Hamden for the sixth time in a row.
“We just focus one day at a time, one practice at a time,” Czerneckianair said. “We have a goal for next weekend, I think all focus will be on Friday.”
