Saints Edged by Purple Eagles

Final	1	2	3	Final
St. Lawrence (10-8-3, 4-3-1 ECAC)	0	2	1	3
Niagara (5-12-2, 1-3-1 CHA)	2	1	1	4

Scoring Summary
1st - 02:27	PP - Ross, David (Niagara)
1st - 08:24	Hannan, Jeff (Niagara)
2nd - 07:02	PP - Pete Child (St. Lawrence)
2nd - 11:38	Gotto, Tyler (Niagara)
2nd - 18:17	Drew Weaver (St. Lawrence)
3rd - 00:58	Haczyk, Bryan (Niagara)
3rd - 03:33	SH - Jeff Caister (St. Lawrence)

St. Lawrence	Niagara
G: 3 Players (#4, #14, #23 - 1) A: Kyle Flanagan - 2 Sh: Nick Pitsikoulis - 5 Sv: Kain Tisi - 24	G: 4 Players (#7, #22, #26, #27 - 1) A: 6 Players (#11, #12, #14, #21, #28, #29 - 1) Sh: Weiss, Danny - 5 Sv: Noonan, Chris - 29

TEAM STATISTICS	St. Lawrence	Niagara
Power Plays	1 for 3	1 for 3
Shorthanded Goals	1	0
Penalties (min)	3 (6)	3 (6)
Shots on Goal	32	28
Face Offs Won	35	31

full stats

Dominated by St. Lawrence in Friday's first game of a two-game weekend series, Niagara University bounced back with a solid effort on Saturday night, tipping the Saints 4-3 in SLU's final non-league game of the 2009-10 season and earning its first win in three games with the Saints this season.

The Purple Eagles, who have played a number of top ten teams close, improve to 5-12-2 on the season, and took advantage of a couple of strange goals to take the win. The clincher and eventual game winner was a shot which came from the corner along the goal line with just 58 seconds gone in the third period as Bryan Haczyk slid the puck along the ice and it ended up going into the net off Saint goalie Kain Tisi's pads.

The Saints pulled to within a goal 3:33 into the third period when Jeff Caister scored his fourth of the year shorthanded, but despite a number of great chances the rest of the way, the Saints could not come up with the equalizer, falling to 10-8-3 on the season and finishing their non-league slate with a 6-5-2 mark.

Niagara couldn't have asked to a better start to the game after Friday's performance. The Purple Eagles were awarded a power play just 1:08 into the first period and converted when junior center David Ross was left alone at the left post and slam dunked a pass from Giancarolo Iouorio for the power play goal at 2:27. It went to 2-0 at the 8:24 mark as an attempted Saint clearing pass in the SLU zone ended up right on the tape of NU freshman Jeff Hannan, who buried his second of the year from between the faceoff circles.

"We knew they were going to come out with a lot of intensity after last night and we expected a completely different game. I thought we got off to somewhat of a slow start and made a couple of mistakes that cost us, but I also thought we competed pretty well in the second half of the game," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "We were missing a couple of pretty good players in Mike McKenzie and Aaron Bogosian, but the guys created chances and we were in it right to the end."

McKenzie and Bogosian were held out of action after sustaining injuries in Friday's win. "There is no sense in taking chances at this point. We start league play the rest of the way next week and we want everyone ready to go for that," Marsh added.

Down 2-0 after one,  Saints got one goal back when sophomore Pete Child scored his sixth of the season on a power play at 7:02 of the second as he took two strides in from the blue line after taking a pass from Nick Pitsikoulis and fired a shot which deflected off NU goaltender Chris Noonan's stick and into the upper corner. Kyle Flanagan picked up his fourth assist of the weekend on the play.

The Purple Eagles regained their two goal lead at 11:38 as defenseman Tyler Gotto threw a puck toward net from the middle of a tangle of players along the sideboard out near the blue line which snuck past Tisi as it dipped just as it got in front of the net.

Flanagan then picked up assist number five in the weekend series as he slid a puck across the top of the circles to Jeremiah Cunningham, who one-timed a shot toward net. Cunningham's shot was tipped past Noonan by senior Drew Weaver for his first career goal. Weaver, a walk-on who has been part of the program for four years, was playing in just his fifth career game.

Haczyk's second goal of the weekend put the Purple Eagles back up by two and while Caister scored his tenth career point against Niagara with the shorthander, the Saints couldn't find the equalizer in the third despite pulling TIsi for an extra attacker in the final minute.

SLU returns to action on Jan. 15, beginning a four-game ECAC home stand against Colgate.