College men's hockey: Colgate topples St. Lawrence to complete down weekend

Nov. 13—CANTON — A rough weekend for the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team ended with a 4-1 loss to Colgate before 1,611 fans in an ECAC Hockey game Saturday night at Appleton Arena.

It was almost an identical score to the 5-1 loss against Cornell for the Saints (5-6 overall, 2-2 conference) on Friday night.

"I didn't think we were consistent for 60 minutes both nights," SLU coach Brent Brekke said. "We were slow coming out of the gates last night and then tonight I thought we had a good first period for about the first 14 minutes and then we get on our heels with the penalty kill and lost some momentum there. We have to find a way to put pucks in the back of the net. They are a good team, a really good team."

For the Raiders (4-7-1, 2-2-0), it was a nice bounce back after being shut out 4-0 by Clarkson on Friday night at Cheel Arena.

"I thought we competed really hard tonight," said Colgate coach Don Vaughan, a former SLU and SUNY Canton player. "We did the little things that you need to do. Clarkson did a lot of that (Friday) night, to us, blocking shots, puck battles on the wall, heavy on faceoffs. We did that tonight. I thought we defended really well, and we got some timely goals."

Colgate picked up the game's first goal at 8 minutes, 25 seconds of the first period on a shot from Ethan Manderville, with Pierson Brandon assisting.

"Scoring first is huge, at any level, but especially for us," Vaughan said. "We haven't fared very well when we haven't scored first. The mindset is better on the bench. It was a good win on the road."

The Raiders extended the lead to 2-0 at 7:37 of the second period when Ryan McGuire hit the post but saw his shot still go into the net. It was the second goal of the season for McGuire, who is the son of former SLU assistant coach and NBC announcer Pierre McGuire.

"Ben Raymond made a hell of a play, we work on it a lot in practice, where he slips it through," McGuire said. "My other linemate, (Ross Mitton) was driving the net. I thought the goalie thought I was going to pass it to him, so I decided to shoot it. It happened to go in. It feels really good. I've been working hard on it all year but the pucks haven't been going in. It's not about the goal, it's about the team. We needed a win tonight."

The Raiders extended the lead to 3-0 on a goal from Matt Verboon at 13:53 of the second period.

"It's awesome, especially on a Saturday night to go home with a good win like that," Verboon said. "We had a good meeting last night with the players to figure stuff out and what we wanted our identity to be, and it showed on the ice today. That's exactly what we wanted."

SLU scored its only goal of the game at 14:02 of the third period on a goal from captain Jordan Steinmetz.

"I think we got away from our offense a little bit," Steinmetz said. "We had trouble scoring goals in the last two games. We need to get up front and bear down on any chance we get."

Alex Young ended the scoring for Colgate with an empty-net goal at 16:41 of the third period.

The Saints will play single nonconference games the next two weeks, playing at Niagara on Saturday and at Providence on Nov. 25.

CLARKSON 4, CORNELL 1

Ayrton Martino scored his first two goals of the season to lead the Golden Knights (5-6, 3-1) past Cornell before 2,782 in an ECAC Hockey game at Cheel Arena.

Jordan Power and Anthony Callin scored power-play goals for the Golden Knights, who built a 3-0 lead.

Zach Tupker scored for the Big Red (2-4, 2-2).