Greening Gives Cornell Win at North Dakota

Photo by DSPics.com

Final	1	2	3	Final
Cornell (5-1-2, (4-0-2 ECAC))	0	1	1	2
North Dakota (5-8-1, (4-5-1 WCHA))	0	0	1	1

Scoring Summary
2nd - 15:07	SH - Michael Kennedy (Cornell)
3rd - 14:37	PP - Brett Hextall (North Dakota)
3rd - 16:37	PP - Evan Barlow (Cornell)

Cornell	North Dakota
G: 2 Players (#15, #18 - 1) A: 3 Players (#3, #20, #24 - 1) Sh: Colin Greening - 5 Sv: Ben Scrivens - 22	G: Brett Hextall - 1 A: 2 Players (#5, #14 - 1) Sh: 5 Players (#14, #16, #17, #18, #26 - 3) Sv: Brad Eidsness - 28

TEAM STATISTICS	Cornell	North Dakota
Power Plays	1 for 4	1 for 8
Shorthanded Goals	1	0
Penalties (min)	8 (16)	4 (8)
Shots on Goal	30	23
Face Offs Won	26	40

full stats

Boxscore

GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Evan Barlow's shot that riccocheted off the arm of Colin Greening and into the goal with just over three minutes to play in the game gave the Cornell men's hockey team a 2-1 victory over North Dakota on Saturday night at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, N.D. The win lifts the Big Red to 5-1-2 on the year, while North Dakota slips to 5-8-1 overall.

Michael Kennedy added his third goal of the year to open the scoring, tallying a short-handed goal in the second period. Ben Scrivens picked up 22 saves for the victory. Cornell went 1-for-4 on the power play in the game, with Greening's game-winner being the lone tally, and killed off eight of the nine North Dakota power plays. North Dakota goaltender Brad Eidsness stopped 28 Cornell shots and took the loss for the Fighting Sioux.

A tripping call on Blake Gallagher led to North Dakota's second power play goal of the game, the Sioux's Ryan Duncan appeared to score the game's first goal, but North Dakota's Chris Vande Velde ran into Scrivens before the shot, knocking the goaltender off balance and to the ice before Duncan roofed the puck over the sprawled Scrivens. Cornell appealed for a goaltender interference penalty, to no avail, as the Sioux continued on the power play.

With 26 seconds left on the penalty to Gallagher, Taylor Davenport went to the box for a cross-check, giving North Dakota a 5-on-3. With a second left on the first expiring penalty, Vande Velde again ran into Scrivens without a penalty, though the faceoff was moved out to the neutral zone. After Gallagher got out of the box, North Dakota's Evan Trupp rang a shot off the crossbar before it was cleared away. Cornell was able to kill off the remaining time on the penalty to Davenport, and the period ended with no score.

Michael Kennedy got the Big Red on the board late in the second period. With Cornell killing off an elbowing penalty on Joe Devin, Seminoff intercepted a North Dakota pass and chipped the puck ahead to a streaking Kennedy. The bouncing puck settled just before the senior co-captain hit the faceoff circle in the North Dakota end, and he shoveled a backhand shot over the right shoulder of Eidsness and just inside the near post, an almost exact copy of the goal Locke Jillson scored in Friday night's game.

Midway through the third period, the Sioux got another 5-on-3 as a slashing call on Joe Devin and a hooking penalty on Patrick Kennedy gave North Dakota 31 seconds worth of a two man advantage. Scrivens stopped two shots and another was deflected as the penalty on Devin expired. With three seconds left on the penalty to Kennedy, though, the Big Red got caught in a wild scramble in front of the net that resulted in the tying goal. After Blake Gallagher blocked a shot, the rebound came off to Brad Miller, who found a wide-open Brett Hextall on the back post with the entire goal to shoot at. Hextall roofed the shot as North Dakota tied the score at one.

Just 30 seconds later, North Dakota's Zach Jones was called for interference, giving the Big Red another power play chance. Cornell kept the puck in the zone for nearly the entire power play, and with 28 seconds left, it paid off. North Dakota tried to clear the puck out of the zone up the middle, but Brendon Nash was there to catch the puck out of mid-air. After dropping the puck to the ice, Nash thought about shooting, but instead dished it off to Evan Barlow, who ripped a one-timer from the faceoff circle on Eidsness' left that went off the arm of Greening and into the top part of the goal with 3:23 to play in the game.

North Dakota called a timeout with 1:14 to play in the third period on a faceoff in the Fighting Sioux end. After winning the faceoff, the Sioux pulled Eidsness for the extra skater, but Cornell was able to hold the Sioux without a shot for the next 45 seconds until a whistle gave a faceoff at center ice with 37.4 seconds left, at which point Cornell coach Mike Schafer used his own timeout. The Sioux won the draw and dumped the puck into the zone, but a missed centering pass sent the puck down into the North Dakota end, and the Sioux got one more rush into Cornell's zone, but could not put a shot on goal as time expired and Cornell came away with the weekend split.

Cornell returns home to close out the fall portion of the 2008-09 season with a home weekend against Clarkson and St. Lawrence next weekend at Lynah Rink. Both games will begin at 7 p.m.