Saints Beat Crimson, Lock Up Fifth Spot

Senior Night came through again for St. Lawrence University's men's hockey team.  The Saints, 9-0-1 in their final home game of the regular season since 1999-2000...the night they traditionally recognize their seniors, made it 10-0-1 and locked up fifth place in the final ECAC standings.

The Saints built a 4-0 lead in the second period, but had to agonize through a Harvard comeback early in the third as a tough month of February didn't want to go away easily. Senior goaltender Alex Petizian, with help from his defense, held off the Crimson for a 4-3 win.

St. Lawrence, which got its first February win after going 0-4-3 in the first seven games of the month, finishes the regular season with a 15-13-7 overall mark and a 9-8-5 ECAC record.  The Saints will not have an easy task in the first round of the playoffs as they draw arch-rival Clarkson, which finished last, but played some excellent hockey in the stretch run. The best-of-three series will begin at Appleton Arena Friday March 5. Harvard, which finished ninth and will play at Princeton next weekend is 7-19-3 overall and 7-12-3 in league play.

"We have been playing some pretty good hockey even though we have not had a lot to show for it in the month of February," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "It was good to finally get that win and it was a good way for the seniors to end their regular season. We've got a real tough task ahead of us with Clarkson coming in for the playoffs, but the way the league has been this year, all of the series are going to be battles."

St. Lawrence had struggled scoring goals in its February streak, scoring more than three just once, in a 7-5 loss at Yale, but broke out with some pretty scoring plays on Saturday and could have had more. SLU had one apparent goal waved off when the referee ruled it came after the whistle and Harvard goalie Kyle Richter made some acrobatic saves in a 18-save first period.

The Saints scored the lone goal of the first period on a major power play at 6:48. Sophomore Brandon Bollig picked up a rebound of a shot from the center point by senior defenseman Jeff Caister, and while Bollig's shot was stopped by Richter, junior center Aaron Bogosian pounced on the second rebound and put it away for his eighth of the season.

The Saints exploded for two quick goals early in the second period. Alex Curran set up Mike McKenzie with a pass from behind the net and McKenzie beat Richter with a backhander at 3:46 with Travis Vermeulen also assisting and   Bollig rifled his sixth of the year past Richter as he one-timed a pass from rookie Kyle Flanagan on a two-on-one rush just under two minutes later with Matt Raley picking up the second assit.

Harvard pulled Richter for sophomore Ryan Carroll following the Bollig goal, but Carroll gave up the eventual game winner as freshman defenseman George Hughes scored his fifth of the year on a power play shot from the point at 18:55 of the second as he took a pass from Vermeulen and gunned it from the blue line through a screen.

The Crimson broke Petizian's shutout bid at 19:51 of the second as freshman Louis Leblanc scored his 11^th of the year and Harvard made it interesting with two goals in the first five minutes of the third period. Danny Biega scored from along the boards 1:59 into the period and Chad Morin's shot deflected into the net off a Saint stick at 4:35, but the Saints settled down after that and Petizian blanked the Crimson the rest of the way.

Richter had 32 saves for Harvard with Carroll adding nine while Petizian had 19 for SLU as the Saints outshot the Crimson 45-22.