CANTON, N.Y. — In the final chapter of the Route 11 rivalry for the 2014-15 season, Clarkson swept St. Lawrence with a 3-1 win Tuesday night, snapping the Saints’ seven-game ECAC winning streak.
In the words of Saints’ coach Chris Wells, the first period was “bland” as neither team could find the back of the net, nor capitalize on power-play chances.
In the second period, the Golden Knights scored a pair of goals on Saints’ netminder Carmen MacDonald.
Olivia Howe won a race for the puck along the half boards, cut to the middle and skated in on MacDonald. Howe deked to the forehand before moving the puck back to her backhand and flipping it top shelf over MacDonald to give Clarkson the 1-0 lead.
Cayley Mercer beat MacDonald at the 17:30 mark of the second period to give the Golden Knights the 2-0 lead. She received a pass from Christine Lambert to the right of MacDonald and flipped the puck over the St. Lawrence netminder’s shoulder in the top corner for the goal.
“It was a lot of good puck movement and communication and I ended up with it and just shot high short side,” said Mercer.
The Golden Knights carried their lead into the third period, while the Saints looked to climb back into the game.
After a tap-in goal by Genevieve Bannon on the power play 7:08 into the third, the Saints found themselves looking at a three-goal deficit with less than 10 minutes to play.
Wells made the decision to pull his goalie with more than eight minutes remaining to attempt to swing momentum towards his team. While the Saints were able to get one on a slap shot from Kirsten Padalis, ultimately, the Golden Knights defense and goalie were able to withstand the de facto eight-minute power play and get the win.
Clarkson coach Matt Desrosiers was proud of the way his team worked together to withstand the St. Lawrence attack at the end of the game.
“We just did a great job of staying composed and not running around,” Desrosiers said. “It was huge. St. Lawrence was tied with us in the standings and this was kind of our game in hand with other teams, and we could either gain ground or lose ground.”
Clarkson is now tied with Cornell for third in the ECAC, while St. Lawrence drops to fifth.
Clarkson goalie Shea Tiley, who finished the contest with 42 saves, never felt overwhelmed.
“I was just trying to make saves and slow the game down,” Tiley said. “They played great in front of me, too.”
Wells was disappointed that his team was unable to find the back of the net more against the Golden Knights, but credited Clarkson with great effort.
“They did a good job of stopping a lot of the things we’ve been doing well recently,” said Wells. “This is a resilient crew. Its a good crew to be around and we can learn a lot of things from this loss.”
