Nash Lifts Cornell to Victory

Photo by DSPics.com

ITHACA, N.Y. -- The exhibition season came to a thrilling end for the Cornell men's hockey team on Friday night, as some late-game drama resulted in a 4-3 Big Red victory over the University of Western Ontario at Lynah Rink. Junior defenseman Brendon Nash's game-winning goal came with 6.3 seconds remaining in the contest, and just 21 seconds after Western Ontario knotted the game at three with an extra-attacker goal.

Nash and Michael Kennedy both had a pair of goals to lift the Big Red, which finished the exhibition slate with a 1-0-1 mark following last Saturday's 3-3 tie with the U.S. Under-18 National Team. Chris Petrow had a goal and an assist for the Mustangs of Western Ontario.

Nash's heroics came about after the Mustangs were the beneficiary of a lucky bounce in the Cornell end. Off a face-off and with the extra skater on the ice, UWO's Jason Swit fired a shot at the Cornell goal that took a bounce off a player and riccocheted above the shoulder of Cornell goaltender Ben Scrivens and into the goal.

Not to be outdone, as time was running down with the two teams seemingly heading into overtime, sophomore Riley Nash made a backhand pass from the corner to his brother, Brendon, standing wide open on the faceoff dot to the right of Mustang goaltender Brad Topping. The elder Nash's shot beat Topping high as the clock above the goal showed 6.3 seconds to play in the contest and the Big Red ahead 4-3.

Western Ontario struck first, scoring a power play goal off the stick of Luc Martin, as he cleaned up a loose puck in front of the Cornell goal. Scrivens stopped the initial shot from Patrick Ouellet, but the rebound came off to Martin in a scrum in front of the goal, and he was able to loft the puck over the outstretched leg of Scrivens.

The Mustangs would take that 1-0 lead into the first intermission, but Kennedy wasted no time in the second period in knotting the score at one. With Western Ontario on a power play, Kennedy took a pass from Evan Barlow and ripped a shot past Topping just 55 seconds into the second period for the Big Red's second short-handed goal in as many games.

Cornell closed out the period in similar fashion, with Nash scoring his first goal of the game, a power-play strike from the point off passes from Michael Kennedy and Colin Greening with 46 seconds remaining in the second. The Big Red added to the margin midway through the third period with Kennedy's second goal of the night, this time with Brendon Nash and Locke Jillson picking up assists.

Western Ontario stormed back, though, cutting the lead to 3-1 on a sloppy exchange defensively by the Big Red on an expiring penalty on the Mustangs' Petrow. After getting out of the box as Western Ontario gained possession of the puck in their own end, Petrow camped out wide open at the Cornell blue line and was on the receiving end of a tape-to-tape pass and skated in alone on Scrivens, faking out the junior netminder before lifting a puck over his right pad and into the net with 8:15 to play. The score would remain 3-2 until Swit's equalizer with less than 30 seconds remaining.

Scrivens made 17 saves in picking up the victory in goal, while Topping stopped 25 Cornell shots in being tagged with the loss. Cornell closed out the game going 1-for-11 on the power play, while the Mustangs were successful in two of their 11 man-advantage opportunities. The two teams combined for 63 minutes worth of penalties, with the Big Red holding a power play for 16:08 of the contest and Western Ontario having the man advantage for 12:03.

The Big Red now has two weeks to prepare for the season opener, facing reigning ECAC Hockey champion Princeton in a nationally televised game on ESPNU at 4 p.m. on Fri., Nov. 7, at Hobey Baker Rink in Princeton, N.J.