Men's hockey drops games to Colgate, Cornell over weekend

Having taken on two nationally-ranked competitors in its first two games of the season — against No. 5 North Dakota and No. 10 Providence — the men's ice hockey team traveled north this weekend looking for its first win of the year against Eastern College Athletic Conference rivals Colgate and Cornell.

Although Princeton (0-4-0 overall, 0-2-0 ECAC) has had recent success in the ECAC, going above .500 for the past two years in a row, the combination of a lackadaisical effort at Colgate and another national powerhouse in No. 8 Cornell sent the Tigers home still winless in this young season.

On Friday night Princeton took on Colgate (4-4-1, 1-1-0) in the Tigers' first ECAC action of the season. In a game that seesawed back and forth, Colgate never fell behind and was able to squeak out of the game with a 4-3 victory.

The Raiders struck first, scoring the first two goals of the game. Sophomore Darryl McKinnon one-timed a centering pass into Princeton's net eight minutes, 15 seconds into the first period to open up a one-goal lead over the Tigers.

The lead was quickly widened to two when teammate Scooter Smith unleashed a low, hard blast that crept just inside the far post.

The Tigers responded, however, not willing to go into the locker room down two goals.

The comeback began at 17:33 when freshman forward Dustin Sproat redirected a shot from the point by freshman defender Seamus Young to score his first goal as a Tiger.

The clutch play of Princeton freshmen continued when forward Patrick Neundorfer tallied his first career goal only 1:20 into the second period off assists by Sproat and junior defenseman Matt Maglione.

Now tied 2-2, the Tigers had the momentum but Colgate took it back with a power play goal at 13:26 of the second period that once again put them up by a single goal.

Although sophomore forward Mike Patton would even up the score with a goal to close out the second period, the Raiders iced the game with McKinnon's second goal of the night at 8:18 of the third period.

Senior captain George Parros blamed the loss on a lack of intensity by the Tigers.

"Basically on Friday night against Colgate we were outworked," Parros said. "Skill-wise, they are not the better team. We accomplished some of our team's goals that night, such as outshooting our opponent, but we still walked away with the loss because of minimal work effort."

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This was not the case against Cornell, a team ranked No. 8 in the nation and consistently the strongest team in the ECAC.

"On Saturday night, against Cornell, the captains and coaches decided that playing hard was our primary focus for the night, and that by accomplishing that goal, the rest would fall into place," Parros said.

With renewed intensity, the Tigers were able to hold Cornell to only three goals in the 3-0 loss, just the second time the Big Red have been held to three goals or fewer this season. Cornell has scored a combined 15 goals in their two other wins this year, including a 6-1 drubbing of Yale.

The two teams battled throughout the first period, but the Tigers were able to get to the first intermission with the score knotted at zero thanks to fine goaltending by sophomore Trevor Clay. Clay turned aside all eight Cornell shots in the period while the Tigers were able to test Cornell goalie David LeNeveu only once.

The Big Red finally broke through at 8:47 of the second period when Cam Abbott forced a rebound into the Tiger net on a delayed penalty.

After Cornell netted one more goal at the close of the second period, the Big Red again took advantage of a delayed penalty call against the Tigers. With Princeton struggling to gain control of the puck in its defensive zone, Cornell pulled its goalie and scored with an extra attacker on the ice when forward Ryan Vesce one-timed a shot past Clay for the final goal of the game.

Although the Tigers did not play David to Cornell's Goliath, the team was much happier with the overall effort on Saturday.

"We knew we were in for a real battle," Parros said. "During the game we played extremely hard, and walked away more satisfied with our effort as compared to Friday's loss."