Solid goaltending and some timely offense lifted the Clarkson University Hockey team to a 3-1 victory over Colgate University before a sold-out crowd of 2,246 at Starr Rink in Hamilton, NY on Saturday night. Junior Dustin Traylen (Kirkland, QUE) equaled his season high for saves with 38 stops and the Golden Knights got goals from freshman David Cayer (Lonqueuil, QUE) and juniors Chris Brekelmans (London, ONT) and Jeff Genovy (Kalamazoo, MI) to knock the Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey League (ECACHL) front runner Raiders out of first place in the league standings. Clarkson, which posted its fifth straight victory over Colgate on its home ice, snapped a two-game losing skid to improve its record to 8-16-2 overall and to 4-9-1 in the conference.
The Knights, who fell 4-2 in a close game at Cornell on Friday, moved into a tied for ninth place in the ECACHL standings after their win over Colgate. Clarkson returns to Cheel Arena this coming weekend to host Yale and Princeton.
Clarkson matched its season low for shots with just 18 on the Colgate goal, but wasted little time in finding the back of the net. Just 2:35 after the opening face off, Cayer scored his second goal of the weekend and fifth of the season, with a shot from a severe angle just above the goal line. Rookies Grant Clitsome (Gloucester, ONT) and Nick Dodge (Oakville, ONT) assisted on the power-play marker.
The Knights made it 2-0 early in the middle frame when Brekelmans tallied his first goal of the season connecting on a slap shot from the blueline at 5:23 with sophomore defensive partner Matt Curley (Madrid, NY) and freshman Ryan Hodkinson (Mt. Sinai, NY) assisting.
The Raiders finally got on the scoreboard, snapping a string of 233:23 without a goal against Clarkson at Starr Rink, when freshman defenseman Matt Torti scored his first collegiate goal at 5:23 of the third.
With just 40 seconds left, however, Clarkson sealed the win with Genovy’s empty-net goal. Clitsome recorded his second assist of the game.
