Union in First All Alone After Sweep; Vermont One Point Back
Harvard also sweeps weekend
ALBANY, N.Y. -- My oh my, what an interesting start to the ECAC Hockey League season. Union and Vermont are turning a lot of heads, as the two have played stellar in their early-season games and currently sit in first and second place, respectively, in the league standings. The two teams have worked hard, with Union sweeping two weekends in a row and Vermont taking three of its last four, with the fourth being a tie. They're being noticed beyond the ECACHL as well, with both receiving votes in this week's national polls.
The Dutchmen earned its current spot by entering a few notes in the history books, as the team earned first-ever sweep of rival Rensselaer over the weekend. First, Union earned a 5-4 victory at a hostile Houston Fieldhouse. The team then came back the next night and wowed a standing room only crowd with a 3-2 win at home.
Senior captain Jordan Webb, this week's Player of the Week, led his team with three goals and an assist in the two games. He also made his personal mark in the record books, moving into second place on the team's all-time Division I scoring list. He now stands at 97 points and needs just eight more to earn the No. 1 spot.
Vermont earned its points on the road over the weekend, with a 4-3 overtime victory at St. Lawrence and a 1-1 tie at Clarkson. The team now has a six-game unbeaten streak, its longest such streak since the 1996-97 season. Rookie standout Torrey Mitchell lifted the team to the win, scoring just 77 seconds into the overtime, while senior assistant captain Brady Leisenring had the team's lone goal in the tie.
Harvard is now in third place after rebounding from its New York road trip by sweeping Yale and Princeton at home over the weekend. The Crimson scored three goals with less than six minutes to go to earn the win over the Bulldogs and then won a shootout at the OK-Corral with the Tigers, earning an 8-6 victory. Freshman Jon Pelle was named the league's Rookie of the Week after scoring the game winner and assisting on two others in the victory over the Bulldogs.
Dartmouth, Clarkson, Princeton and Brown also picked up victories over the weekend. The Tigers and Golden Knights each earned two points on Friday, while the Big Green and Bears won their respective games on Saturday. Junior goaltender Dustin Traylen was named the Goaltender of the Week, after stopping 62 of 64 shots through 125 minutes of play to backbone Clarkson to three-points at Cheel Arena.
Cornell and Colgate faced non-conference action, traveling to Michigan State and UMass-Lowell, respectively. The Big Red earned a 1-1 tie on Friday vs. the Spartans before falling 2-0 on Sunday. The team played well enough to remain in the top 10 in both national polls. The Raiders fell to the River Hawks, but also remained in the polls.
There are two mid-week games this week, with Harvard playing host to Boston College on Tuesday and Clarkson heading down the road to St. Lawrence on Wednesday.
This weekend, Brown heads out to No. 7/8 Minnesota-Duluth and there are plenty of ECAC Hockey League games as well.
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/.
