In wild weekend, m. hockey emerges with a tie and loss

While all Princeton students have to deal with what Shakespeare calls "barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold," the impending deadline of Dean's Date and the specter of semester exams, the members of the men's hockey team faced additional tests this weekend: St. Lawrence and Clarkson. Their grade for effort and energy was clearly in the 'A' range although the games resulted in a 5-5 tie the Saints and a 5-4 loss to the Knights.

On Friday, Princeton (5-14-1 overall, 5-7-1 Eastern College Athletic Conference) emerged in lethargic fashion in the first period, a behavior that has plagued them this season. St. Lawrence (6-13-4, 2-6-1) exploited this lapse and unleashed an offensive fury that resulted in three goals in the first five minutes. Sophomore goalie Eric Leroux was not his usual stalwart self, getting beat out wide, up high and down low.

"I give St. Lawrence a lot of credit," head coach Len Quesnelle '88 said. "They came out, and they blitzed us. We just weren't prepared to battle and compete." Sophomore forward Dustin Sproat put the Tigers on the scoreboard at 16 minutes, 29 seconds with a backhanded tip-in rebound off a shot by senior defender Steve Slaton. Still, the Saints quickly revived their three-goal lead, chasing Leroux from the game. Freshman goalie B.J. Sklapsky came in to stanch the hemorrhage. The goalie change seemed to reawakened the team, resulting in a goal by sophomore forward Patrick Neundorfer with 1:53 left in the first frame. Sklapsky's poise was tested right away, but he responded well to the pressure and stopped a number of pointblank shots.

"I felt that our team got out to a slow start and didn't help Eric out a lot, but it seemed that when I got in there the guys kind of sparked a little bit," Sklapsky said. "It would have been rough to stand there with the help they were giving him at the time."

The Tigers came out strong to begin the second, as they collected their third goal at 3:53 on senior defender Matt Maglione's rocket shot from the left point on the power play. Ten minutes later, junior forward Mike Patton collected a centering pass and slipped it under McKenna for the tying point. However, St. Lawrence reclaimed the lead and the momentum with a minute and a half remaining in the second period.

Senior forward Chris Owen one-timed a pass from freshman forward Kevin Westgarth for the game's final goal just over two minutes into the third period. Both goalies came up with big saves in overtime to keep the game deadlocked. Sklapsky finished with 21 saves, and his impressive relief work earned him the start the next night against Clarkson. The Golden Knights (9-8-4, 4-4-1) came into Saturday's game with confidence garnered from a streak of ten unbeaten games against Princeton. However, it was the Tigers who claimed the early lead. At 2:36 in the first, sophomore forward Sebastian Borza took a pass from behind the net and beat Clarkson's goalie Dustin Traylen.

Princeton padded that lead just over halfway through the first frame when Maglione scooped up a loose puck in the slot and slid it past Traylen's left pad for the score.

Twice the Tigers owned a two-goal lead, and twice that lead was reduced to one goal less than a minute later. Clarkson scored two unanswered goals in the third to force the Tigers' second overtime game in as many nights.

The Knights completely controlled overtime, but after the Tigers killed off a penalty and returned to full-strength with just 32 seconds remaining it appeared that they would emerge with a tie. Unfortunately, Princeton could overcome neither its winless Saturday malaise nor garner an overtime win for the first time since Nov. 2001. After expending so much energy on the penalty kill, the Tigers were unable to dump the puck out of their zone. With 16 seconds left in overtime, Clarkson forward Trevor Edwards led a three-on-one rush and passed to John Sullivan in the slot, who flipped the game winner over Sklapsky.

"I thought we played a hell of a hockey game," Quesnelle said. "Despite the shots that we gave up, we sure didn't deserve to lose in overtime. I was really happy with our effort with the exception of maybe five minutes of hockey over the two games."