Saturday, January 13, 2018

Brockport beats Stevenson in OT

The College at Brockport ice hockey team won in a hard-fought overtime battle over Stevenson University, Friday evening by a final score of 5-4. The Golden Eagles move to 7-6-1, where the Mustangs fall to 6-5-5 in 2018.

Brockport came out in the first period stumbling as they suffered an early penalty to give the Mustangs a power play opportunity. With the Golden Eagles being a man-down, Stevenson was able to capitalize and tally the first goal of the game. The deficit was double as the Mustangs found the back of the net to hold a 2-0 advantage over the Green and Gold. Things started to turn around after a Stevenson penalty to give Brockport a power play. Tim Kielich grabbed the puck in the corner of the offensive zone and sent a pass across the net to find Hunter Laslo as he put a quick shot past the goalie to now trail 2-1. The Golden Eagles kept rolling as they tied the score up 2-2 two minutes later. Brandon McMartin collected a pass at the blue line and ripped a shot wide of the cage, but the puck bounced back in front of the net where Dylan Shapiro was there to convert his shot. Both teams fought back and forth for the remainder of the period but the score stayed the same heading into the first break.

The Green and Gold kept the scoring going with a goal one minute into the second period to take a 3-2 lead over the Mustangs. Connor Hutchins stole the puck from the opposing team in the offensive zone and found a trailing Aidan Verbeke in the slot, and ripped his shot top corner. Brockport faced some adversity late in the second period as Stevenson notched two back-to-back goals to reclaim a 4-3 lead heading into the third period.

 The Golden Eagles came out fighting in the new period with constant pressure on the Mustang defense. The Green and Gold found no luck as they continuously rifled shots on frame but could not convert any of them. With less than a minute on the clock, Brockport pulled their goalie to give them a man-advantage to give them one last chance to tie the game up.  With 15 seconds left, Zac Sikich received a pass in the slot that he ripped on net. His shot was saved but Hutchins was there to score on the rebound to tie the game at 4-4 and force overtime.

The overtime period was dominated by the Green and Gold fired off 10 shots and didn't allow one shot on their own net. The game was ended as Kielich scored the game winning goal with a minute to spare to win by the eventual score.

Kielich led the Brockport offense with a goal and a pair of assists. Verbeke also contributed a goal and an assist, and McMartin dished out three assists. Jake Moore finished the game with 34 saves between the pipes.