Quinnipiac scores seven goals on Colgate

Quinnipiac scores seven goals on Colgate 
By Kevin Noonan, QBSN Staff Writer

The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team put on a scoring exhibition for the #12/14 Colgate Raiders Saturday Night in a 7-1 rout in front of 3,472 fans at the High Point Solutions Arena at the TD Bank Sports Center.

The Bobcats (13-8-4, 5-5-4 ECAC) scored seven unanswered goals from seven different players in the second and third periods of the game after the Raiders (12-8-2, 6-4-0) scored their only goal in the first period. 

Sophomore Connor Jones (Montrose, British Columbia) led Quinnipiac offensively with four assists in the game while brother Kellen Jones (Montrose, British Columbia) notched a goal and two assists

The victory puts Quinnipiac in sole position of third place in the ECAC with 14 points, trailing only Cornell (16) and Union (15). 

Chris Wagner scored the first goal of the game for Colgate at the 13:41 mark of the first period after picking up the redirected shot from the stick of Jeremy Price.  Price and Robbie Bourdon both are credited with assists.

The Bobcats trailed 1-0 to start the second period when junior Zach Davies (Smithers, British Columbia) got the party started with his second goal of the season.  Only 16 seconds into the period, he scored on a shot from the boards.  Both of the Joneses were both given assists on the play.  Two minutes later, Kellen lit the lamp for the second goal of the game and sixth of the season.  Connor Jones was given credit for another assist while freshman Matthew Peca (Petawawa, Ontario) picked up his only assist of the game. 

Halfway through the period, junior Mike Dalhuisen (Nymegen, Holland) scored his second goal of the season.  For the second time of the game, the Jones twins were credited with assists on the same goal.  Right before the end of the period, junior Jeremy Langlois (Tempe, Ariz.) scored the fourth goal of the second period.  Langlois’s unassisted, shorthanded goal was his team-leading 14^th of the season.

The scoring was not close to being done for the Bobcats.  Junior Reese Rolheiser (Edmonton, Alberta) got the scoring started once again 9:02 into the third period for his first goal of the season.  Rolheiser received a beautiful pass from senior Spencer Heichman (Yorba Linda, Calif.), who was credited with his fifth assist of the season.  Junior Zack Currie’s (Victoria, British Columbia) pass to lead Heichman also earned him his seventh assist.

The final two goals of the game for Quinnipiac were of the power-play variety.  Zack Currie scored his seventh goal of the season to make the game 6-1.  Seniors Scott Zurevinski (Saskatoon, Sask.) and Yuri Bouharevich (Montreal, Que.) were both awarded helpers on the play, their 12^th and ninth assists of the season, respectively.  The scoring ended two minutes later when Peca scored a power-play goal of his own for his sixth goal.  He received a crisp pass from Connor Jones, who got his fourth assist of the game and leads the team with 21 helpers

The Bobcats finished the game two-for-six on the power-play, while the Raiders were only one-for-five.

Not to be forgotten is goaltender Eric Hartzell (White Bear Lake, Minn.).  The Quinnipiac goaltender was nearly perfect in this game for the Bobcats.  He stopped 26 of the 27 Raiders shots, the only goal being off an errant rebound. His counterpart, Eric Mihalik, only managed to stop 14 of 19 shots before being pulled for Steve Estep.  Estep still gave up two goals of his own while getting four saves. 

The Bobcats have another three weeks off before they host the Harvard Crimson on Friday, Feb. 3 and the Dartmouth Big Green on Saturday, Feb. 4.  The puck will drop for both games at 7 p.m. at the High Point Solutions Arena at the TD Bank Sports Center.