{"id":19097,"date":"2014-03-21T19:16:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-22T00:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/?p=19097"},"modified":"2020-08-24T22:18:51","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T03:18:51","slug":"five-players-score-as-union-earns-chance-at-three-peat-by-beating-cornell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/2014\/03\/21\/five-players-score-as-union-earns-chance-at-three-peat-by-beating-cornell\/","title":{"rendered":"Five players score as Union earns chance at three-peat by beating Cornell"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kevin Sullivan scores one of Union’s five goals in a win over Cornell (photo: Marilyn Zube).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.<\/b> — Gunning for its third ECAC Hockey tournament title in a row, Union took its game right at Cornell, running the Big Red out of goals and out of gas in a 5-2 semifinal win on Friday.<\/p>\n

Seniors Cole Ikkala, Daniel Carr and Kevin Sullivan, junior Max Novak, and rookie Mike Vecchione divvied up the goals for the top-seeded Dutchmen (27-6-4), and junior Colin Stevens backed them up with 24 saves.<\/p>\n

[scg_html_ecac2014]”Momentum is a big part of the game,” Ikkala said. “We got that 2-0 lead and we stuck to our game, we kept pushing. Credit to Cornell, they’re a great hockey team. … They pushed, we pushed and in the end we came out on top. We didn’t let up; we stayed with our systems.”<\/p>\n

Junior Joakim Ryan and sophomore Christian Hilbrich scored for the Big Red (17-10-5), but the two goals weren’t enough to support senior Andy Iles (26 saves) in what may be the Ithaca native’s final game of his collegiate career.<\/p>\n

“Union did an excellent job in transition and in special teams,” Cornell coach Mike Schafer said. “Congratulations to them. For us, obviously, it’s tremendously disappointing. A number of things have to happen for us to continue our season, or perhaps our season’s over. If it is, we have no one to blame but ourselves.”<\/p>\n

Schafer admitted earlier this week: “We’re not going to walk into Lake Placid and start pumping in four or five goals. In the playoffs, some nights it’s about being comfortable playing in a low-scoring, defensive game.”<\/p>\n

In fact, the Big Red were 0-4-1 this season when allowing four goals or more. Union — now 19-1 when scoring four goals or more — exposed Cornell’s offensive deficiency with responsible defending and a few opportunistic rushes of its own.<\/p>\n

Ikkala set Cornell back on its heels in the 10th minute of action with a slippery backhand that wriggled between Iles’ knees. Eight minutes later, Sullivan knocked the Red to their knees with a power-play goal.<\/p>\n

A souped-up forecheck paid dividends for Cornell in the second period as Union struggled to achieve center ice. Hilbrich capped off a series of successful shifts with an unassisted snipe from the right-wing dot, beating Stevens to the top corner and halving Union’s lead.<\/p>\n

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000s.9Uwbeni.s” g_name=”20140314-ECAC-Union-Cornell” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.Y67uao8rGcH8wxfe7Bj_4Tc7KJAMcqGXyZKTlbS1.rqavEanLLA–” ]A wild 1:12 toward the end of the period kept the fans, bands and scorekeepers on their toes: Novak blew a shot through Iles at 17:20 of the period; Ryan beat Stevens 58 seconds later to cut Union’s lead back to one; Vecchione then reinstated the two-goal cushion 14 seconds after that at 18:32.<\/p>\n

“The back-and-forth in the second period, momentum’s going both ways, and us as a team, we’ve got to capitalize when we get the momentum; we’ve got to keep it. We didn’t,” said Hilbrich.<\/p>\n

Cornell earned a crucial five-on-three advantage midway through the third period, but was unable to find the net.<\/p>\n

“I think that special teams, we didn’t get the job done, especially five-on-three,” Schafer said.<\/p>\n

“We had chances,” Hilbrich said. “We just didn’t convert.”<\/p>\n

Carr iced the game with an 80-foot, empty-net goal with 1:23 remaining.<\/p>\n

Cornell will be praying for a perfect combination of results from around college hockey’s league tournaments in order to extend the Big Red’s season into the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

Union moves on to its fourth league championship game in five years (2-1); the Dutchmen will take on the winner of Friday night’s Colgate-Quinnipiac contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Gunning for its third ECAC Hockey tournament title in a row, Union took its game right at Cornell, running the Big Red out of goals and out of gas in a 5-2 semifinal win on Friday. Seniors Cole Ikkala, Daniel Carr and Kevin Sullivan, junior Max Novak, and rookie Mike Vecchione […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[351],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171840525,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19097\/revisions\/171840525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19097"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}