January 22, 2010

Drewiske Sends Saints Past Brown

CANTON, N.Y. -- Sophomore forward Jacob Drewiske had his second two-goal game of the season leading St. Lawrence University to a 5-2 Eastern College Athletic Conference Division I men's hockey win over Brown University at Appleton Arena Friday night.

Drewiske, who scored his first two collegiate goals in a win at Clarkson earlier in the year, doubled his career output, putting the Saints up 3-1 on a no-look backhand in the second period and adding a shorthanded goal at 8:33 of the third to complete the scoring.

St. Lawrence improves to 12-8-4 overall and 6-3-2 in the ECAC and is 4-1-2 since January 1. Brown dropped its fifth in a row and is now 1-8-1 in road games this season.

The Saints wasted little time in getting on the board as Brandon Bollig forced a Brown turnover along the side boards in the Brown end and center Travis Vermeulen fed senior wing Alex Curran who snapped his sixth of the season under the crossbar just 1:29 into the game. Brown goalie Dan Rosen, making his first start since November after missing two months due to injury, came up with several big saves later in the first period including a breakaway stop on Jeremiah Cunningham just over four minutes into the game.

Brown came back to tie the game with 1:30 left in the period as Sean McMonagle's shot along the ice from the center slot slipped past Saint goalie Kain Tisi. The Bears had 8:11 of power play time in the first period, but managed just five shots on goal.

"We know that you always have to earn everything you get when you play Brown," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "They have given us fits over the years, but I thought we handled things pretty well tonight and got some big plays to put it away. The one disappointing part is losing Pete Child to a knee injury in the second period. He has been playing great hockey for us and it looks like he is going to be out for a while."

Freshman defenseman George Hughes put the Saints back in front with his third of the year on a power play 6:06 into the second period, taking a point-to-point pass from defensive partner Pete Child before rifling a shot over Rosen's glove and Drewiske scored his third of the year with a no-look backhand from the left faceoff circle which caught the upper corner off a pass from Rick Carden at 14:07.

Brown refused to go away, however, and junior Harry Zolnierczyk made it a 3-2 game with his eighth of the year from right in front of Tisi off Devin Timberlake's pass at 18:08.

Freshman Defenseman Jordan Dewey scored his first collegiate goal on a rocket which snuck just under the cross bar at 2:06 of the third to make it a 4-2 game and Carden made a great play, rushing the puck into the Brown zone with the Saints down a man and sliding the puck to Drewiske from his knees for Drewiske's second of the night with the Saints a man down to wrap it up at 8:33.

Tisi made 30 saves for the Saints in his eighth consecutive start while Rosen gave up five goals on 34 shots before giving way to Mike Clemente who had five saves in 8:59 of action.