By: Taylor Massey, QBSN Staff Writer
The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team continued its undefeated streak to five games when it defeated ECAC opponent Princeton 3-2 on Sunday afternoon.
The past few Quinnipiac games have been great team effort wins after the loss of some key players. Sophomores Connor and Kellen Jones have been out since last weekend’s games, and junior Jeremy Langlois was not in the line-up in the game against the Tigers.
“We can’t cry over spilled milk,” said head coach Rand Pecknold. “We have to get after it and compete. We just wanted to really try to focus on that perseverance and to come out and compete.”
The Bobcats proved that they came to compete, taking the lead in the first period when junior Zach Currie (Victoria, British Columbia) shot from the faceoff circle. The puck bounced between the pads of Princeton goalie Mike Condon and slid into the net for the first goal of the game. Clay Harvey (Gull Lake, Saskatchewan) found the puck behind the net, sent it over to senior Yuri Bouharevich (Montreal, Quebec) who was able to get it to Currie for the goal.
Courtesy: quinnipiacbobcats.com |
Currie rocketed his shot past Condon just a minute later for his second goal of the game.
“Truthfully the ‘D-men’ have just been trying to get a lot of shots on net. It’s kind of one of our keys to get the puck to the net,” said Currie of defense players stepping up in the absence of some offense. “I just got a couple through and got lucky I guess.”
Princeton was once again unable to break through the tough Quinnipiac defense as the period came to a close, and the Bobcats were left with a 3-0 lead.
Princeton finally got on the board with four minutes left in the third period when Michael Sdao fired a shot past junior goalie Eric Hartzell (White Bear Lake, Minn.). Down 3-1, Princeton opted to pull their goalie with about two and a half minutes left in play.
The strategy paid off when another shot grazed past Hartzell off the stick of Andrew Calof. With just over a minute left in the game, Princeton was making a comeback, but it wasn’t enough to take over the Bobcats.
The Bobcats great penalty kill prevented the Tigers from capitalizing on any of their four power-plays. Hartzell also made some key saves, stopping 35 of the 37 shots by Princeton to hold onto the lead and win the game 3-2.
Quinnipiac improves to 11-6-3 overall and 3-4-3 in ECAC play while Princeton falls to 4-9-1 overall and 3-7-1 in conference play. The Bobcats have an extended break to hopefully get some key players back on the ice. They return to play Dec. 30 when they are on the road to take on Nebraska-Omaha in a two-game weekend series.
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