Bulldogs Win to Stay in First

Photo by DSPics.com

Final	1	2	3	Final
Yale (15-6-3, 11-4-2)	3	1	2	6
Colgate (11-12-5, 8-7-1)	1	0	2	3

Scoring Summary
1st - 03:53	PP - Miller, Andrew (Yale)
1st - 10:09	O'Neill, Brian (Yale)
1st - 15:59	Francois Brisebois (Colgate)
1st - 19:59	Little, Broc (Yale)
2nd - 19:03	Backman, Sean (Yale)
3rd - 01:29	PP - Little, Broc (Yale)
3rd - 15:01	PP - Robbie Bourdon (Colgate)
3rd - 16:24	PP - Backman, Sean (Yale)
3rd - 17:17	SH - Francois Brisebois (Colgate)

Yale	Colgate
G: 2 Players (#14, #16 - 2) A: Brian O'Neill - 3 Sh: Broc Little - 6 Sv: Billy Blase - 23	G: Francois Brisebois - 2 A: 4 Players (#17, #24, #26, #27 - 1) Sh: 2 Players (#13, #26 - 4) Sv: Alex Evin - 33

TEAM STATISTICS	Yale	Colgate
Power Plays	3 for 7	1 for 4
Shorthanded Goals	0	1
Penalties (min)	6 (12)	10 (20)
Shots on Goal	39	26
Face Offs Won	29	40

full stats

HAMILTON, N.Y. - Sean Backman and Broc Little had two goals each as the No. 6 Yale men's hockey team raced past Colgate 6-3 at Starr Rink before 1,238 to remain in a three-way ECAC Hockey first-place tie.

The Elis (15-6-3, 11-4-2 ECAC), who scored twice on seven man-advantages, now have 24 points along with Cornell and Union, both winners tonight. Yale outshot Colgate 39-26 and got a goal and three assists from Andrew Miller and three (1-2) points from Brian O'Neill to win for the third straight time.

Billy Blase stopped 23 of 26 shots to earn his fourth victory of the year in his first road start of 2009-10. He had nine saves in each of the first two periods. Alex Evin, who had 16 stops in the third period, finished with 33 for the home team.

The Raiders (11-12-5, 8-7-1) were 1-for-4 on the power play and had two goals from Francois Brisebois.

The Bulldogs popped the net first on its initial power-play chance early on. Miller found a rebound off an O'Neill shot near the edge of the right circle and calmly flicked a backhander under the crossbar for his fourth goal of the year at 3:53.

Yale upped the lead to 2-0 almost six minutes later because of a top-notch feed by Backman. The senior forward, with the puck on his backhand near center ice, hit O'Neill (10^th goal) with a perfect lead pass. Yale's sophomore winger, with a defenseman drafting off him, shielded the puck as he went to the crease and tucked it five-hole on Evin.

Brisebois (11^th) and the Raiders took advantage of what would have been their first power play with a goal on a delayed penalty. Brisbebois, a junior winger, skated into the high slot and sent a slapshot past Blase at 15:59 to cut the margin in half.

The Elis, who had a 14-10 shots advantage, kept putting the pressure on Evin by cycling the puck and winning the battles for loose biscuits. That hustle caused a Colgate defender to ice the puck with 24 ticks on the first-period clock, a play that helped get the two-goal lead back.

The puck never left the Colgate zone in the first 23 of the 24 remaining seconds. Four of five shots bounced off the Raiders' goalie before Little's forehand wrister went top shelf with one second left to cap the visitors' impressive opening frame.

The second period may have had just one goal, a pretty Backman wrister with 57 seconds left, but it had all the end-to-end action of the opening one. Colgate had nine of the 16 shots, but Blase weathered a long two-man deficit that was part of three straight power plays for the home team.

Yale's lone senior netminder had to fight off four or five grade-A scoring chances over four straight minutes of a penalty kill. Bulldogs blocked shots, made big saves, cleared the puck and even got scoring chances to help blank the Raiders. Little went in alone on Evin and missed a backhander down a man. Another classic example of the Yale hustle was Denny Kearney hustling back to pull up a shooter's stick

Miller did a lot of the hard work to create the goal in the last minute of the frame. He controlled the puck in the corner before turning to fire a lead pass to Backman, who raced to catch it and then fire on net for his 16^th of the year.