Four Home Teams Sweep ECACHL Opponents Over Weekend
Colgate, Cornell, Union and Vermont open league play with victories
ALBANY, N.Y. -- ECAC Hockey League play was in full swing for the first time over the weekend and three teams earned four points with sweeps over visiting teams. Colgate, Cornell, Union and Vermont all went 2-0-0 to open the ECACHL slate, while four others split the weekend. The Big Red and Catamounts each had 2-0 shutouts to start their weekends off on the right foot and were joined in the shutout club by Princeton, which closed its road trip with a 3-0 victory.
Starting with Colgate, the Raiders battled to earn a 3-2 overtime win vs. Brown on Friday night, with junior Jon Smyth netting the game winner on a power play. The Raiders then captured a 4-1 victory the next night over Harvard.
Cornell extended its opening winning streak to four games with a 2-0 blanking of Harvard and a 7-2 win over Brown. Sophomore netminder David McKee earned his sixth career shutout with the win over the Crimson, and after making 40 saves over the two games, was named Goalie of the Week. The Big Red currently leads the nation on offense, defense, power play and penalty kill.
Union came from behind and then held on for a 6-5 victory vs. St. Lawrence in its league opener, with Jonathan Poirier netting a goal and three assists. He followed that performance with a power-play goal the next night in the win over Clarkson. For his five-point weekend, he was named Player of the Week
Vermont extended its good fortunes with its 2-0 win over Princeton and 7-1 win over Yale. Freshman Joe Fallon was named the league's Rookie of the Week, after earning his second career shutout in just his sixth collegiate start. Senor forward Scott Mifsud led the team offensively with four goals over the two games, including his first collegiate hat trick vs. the Bulldogs.
Four teams split their Friday-Saturday series, with Dartmouth and Rensselaer earning wins Friday, and St. Lawrence and Princeton going home happy on Saturday.
Junior Dustin Sproat started the Tigers' scoring against the Big Green, while Eric LeRoux earned the 3-0 shutout by making 41 saves. In the other three games, Garret Overlock had Dartmouth's winner vs. the Bulldogs, while Kevin Croxton put the Engineers up front and Chase Trull had the go-ahead goal for the Saints.
A mix of league and non-league games dot this coming weekend's schedule. Harvard and Yale will have the national spotlight on them for their game in Cambridge on Friday, as it is CSTV's game of the week. Princeton also travels to New England to face Brown and the Crimson. Union and Rensselaer will visit each other in a travel partner weekend, while Dartmouth and Vermont visit Clarkson and St. Lawrence in the North Country. Colgate has a single non-conference game vs. UMass-Lowell, while Cornell heads out west for a two-game set at Michigan State.
Follow all the action with live stats from most games and postgame stories and box scores from all the games online at http://www.ecachockeyleague.com/.
