Union win is first home victory on the season

The men's hockey team may not have gotten the weekend sweep it hoped for, but the Tigers were able to get one major monkey off their backs, picking up their first home victory of the season Saturday night at Baker Rink.

After falling to Rensselaer 4-3 on Friday night, Princeton (5-5-0 overall, 4-4-0 ECAC Hockey) came back to defeat Union 4-3 the next day, bringing the team back to .500 for the season.

Eager to forget the tough loss to the Engineers the night before, the Tigers came prepared against the Dutchmen (3-6-2, 1-3-2) and were able to jump out to an early lead.

Seven minutes, three seconds into the first period, junior forward Lee Jubinville made what appeared to be a perfect pass to junior forward Brett Wilson in the crease. Wilson quickly stuffed the puck past Union goalie Corey Milan to give Princeton a 1-0 lead.

Credited with the assist, Jubinville later confessed that the pass was not really what it seemed.

"It was meant to be a shot," Jubinville said. "Turned out to be a decent play, though."

Later in the period, the Tigers extended their lead when Jubinville scored his fifth goal of the season, beating Milan on Princeton's first power-play opportunity of the game.

Trailing 2-0 at the start of the second period, Union cracked sophomore goalie Zane Kalemba for the first time when Josh Coyle scored a power-play goal to cut Princeton's lead in half.

The Tigers responded just over a minute later when Jubinville made a pass up to Wilson on a breakaway. Though Wilson's shot appeared to hit Milan in the chest, it trickled past the Union goalie to give Princeton a 3-1 lead early in the second frame.

"[Jubinville] made a great play in the neutral zone to chip it by their defenseman, and I snuck in behind him and got it," Wilson said. "I just kind of found a hole — it wasn't a great shot by me, but it managed to sneak in there."

Later in the second, sophomore forward Mark Magnowski — back after missing the past four games due to injury — scored what would eventually prove to be the game-winner for the Tigers. After receiving a pass from freshman forward Matt Arhontas, Magnowski shot the puck into the Union net, giving the Tigers a 4-1 lead.

"[Magnowski] is really big for us," head coach Guy Gadowsky said after the game. "Not only did he score the winning goal, but he does so many things for us — in the face-off circle, killing penalties. He does so many things that we need. We're a lot more organized with Magnowski in the lineup."

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Despite struggling in the third period — allowing two goals and being outshot 14-9 — the Tigers were able to hold on for a 4-3 victory. Princeton was helped by Union's disorganized line changes late in the third, which resulted in two Dutchmen penalties for having too many men on the ice.

Kalemba, playing in his first game since losing to Quinnipiac on Nov. 21, turned in a solid performance, allowing just three goals and making 32 saves.

"I've often said that timely goaltending is better than great goaltending," Gadowsky said. "And [Kalemba] just seems to come up with the big save when we need it. He's that kind of guy — he's calm, he's poised and he gives the team confidence."

A night earlier against RPI (7-5-3, 2-2-2), Princeton got off to a similarly fast start. After drawing a questionable penalty for goaltender interference, Jubinville gained a breakaway just over two minutes later and scored, giving the Tigers an early 1-0 lead.

Princeton added to its lead when senior forward Landis Stankievech scored his first goal of the season. Despite controlling the pace for nearly the entire first period, the Tigers caught a bad break when RPI scored at 17:08 in the period. A long dump-in attempt from his own blue line by Engineer Jeff Foss took a surprising bounce over freshman goaltender Alan Reynolds' head, ending up in the Princeton goal.

After receiving a power play toward the start of the second period, the Tigers went on to capitalize immediately.

Wilson won an offensive-zone faceoff and passed the puck to sophomore forward Cam MacIntyre, who quickly scored from the crease to give Princeton a 3-1 lead.

The Tiger momentum, however, was short-lived. Midway through the second period, RPI scored a pair of goals in quick succession, at 6:32 and 9:54, to knot the score at 3-3.

The final dagger to the Tigers came at the very end of the second period after a roughing penalty on junior forward Brandan Kushniruk was called with just eight seconds left on the clock.

On the power play, the Engineers won the face-off in the Princeton zone and worked the puck around to Jonathan Ornelas, who beat Reynolds with just one second remaining to give RPI a 4-3 lead.

Despite a relentless third period in which they outshot RPI 15-5, the Tigers were unable to find an equalizer and dropped their fourth consecutive home game.

While Princeton managed to hang on for the win against Union on Saturday, watching their opponents mount a pair of late comebacks over the weekend left the Tigers with an obvious area for improvement.

"We have to get a little better at holding leads — blowing a 3-1 lead last night and then being up 4-1 going into the third and giving [Union] two goals to make it more of a game than it should have been," Wilson said. "We have to learn how to finish teams off."

Princeton will take on Notre Dame in a pair of non-conference games next weekend at Baker Rink, looking to gain some momentum heading into its 20-day holiday break.