Men's hockey falls to first place Cornell

Men’s hockey falls to first place Cornell

By Angelique Fiske, QBSN Web-Editor

The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team (12-8-5, 4-5-4 ECAC) lost to No. 9 nationally-ranked Cornell (10-4-2, 7-1-1 ECAC) Friday night in Hamden, 3-2, despite holding a one goal advantage heading into the final period.  The Bobcats surrendered their lead on two short-handed, third period goals.  Even though the Bobcats fell to the first place team in the ECAC, they remain tied with Colgate after it lost on the road at Princeton, but both fall behind Union into third place.

Cornell opened up the scoring when Locke Jillson put the puck past Eric Hartzell (White Bear Lake, Minn.) in the first period for his third of the season.  Cole Bardreau and Dustin Mowrey were credited with their third and fourth helpers respectively.

As the seconds winded down in the first period, junior Jeremy Langlois (Tempe, Ariz.) netted his team-leading 13^th goal of the season to level the playing field going into the second period with help from seniors Spencer Heichman (Yorba Linda, Calif.) and Mike Glaicar (Kamloops, British Columbia).

Sophomores Kellen and Connor Jones (Montrose, British Columbia) set junior Zack Currie (Victoria, British Columbia) up in the second period for the one shining moment of the Bobcats’ special teams – a power play goal.  Currie followed up Kellen’s initial shot and put it past Cornell’s keeper, Andy Iles for the lead.

This lead, however, barely made it into the final frame as the Cornell players came out with a vengeance, even when the odds were stacked against them.  Just over two minutes into the third period and again ten minutes later, the Big Red managed two short-handed goals, the first coming on a breakaway by Sean Collins.  The second goal that took the Bobcats out of the game was scored by Joel Lowry.  Collins earned his second point of the period on the assist, and Braden Birch also earned a point of his own.

“We’ve got to play better defense than that,” head coach Rand Pecknold said of the third period performance.

In spite of the final score, Quinnipiac out-shot Cornell, 33-16.  The Bobcats’ inability to convert was in large part thanks to Iles, who managed 31 saves.

“If you’ve got a goalie like that, you’re going to win a lot of hockey games,” Pecknold said.

Quinnipiac has another chance to prove itself in the ECAC as the very team it is tied with in the standings, Colgate, comes to Hamden, Saturday at 4 p.m.