One of the toughest tasks in college hockey is to bounce back in a "consolation game" of an in season tournament. There is a natural tendency for a letdown, but in the eyes of the Pairwise and your overall record the word consolation has no meaning. For the Golden Knights, they showed that type of grit when down 1-0 and then 3-1 to storm back and take an important 5-4 overtime win over the #11 ranked UMass Minutemen.
Clarkson fell behind when Michael Cameron scored at the 4:48 mark of the opening period. Clarkson would get a nice feed from
Ellis Rickwood to
Ryan Taylor at the 18:16 mark to even the score heading into the intermission.
In the 2
nd period, UMass would jump out to a 3-1 lead with goals from Connors and O'Hara.
Clarkson got the spark they needed when UMass took an interference penalty giving the Knight's
Mathieu Gosselin the chance to cut the deficit to 1 goal. Gosselin scored at 13:51 from
Ryan Richardson and
Ayrton Martino. Then the Knights would tie the game at 18:34 when Martino was sent in on a break on a long pass from
Mathieu Gosselin and was able to sneak a puck past the outstretched leg of Massachusetts goalie Cole Brady.
Down a man to start the 3
rd, the Knights got a break when
Anthony Romano would give the Knights the lead on a breakaway goal just 42 seconds into the period.
UMass would tie the game at 8:30 of the 3
rd to force overtime.
In the OT,
Ryan Taylor would strip UMass of the puck as they entered the defensive zone and elected to shoot on a 2 on 1 where he collected his own rebound and gave the Knights the win with his 2
nd of the game and 8
th of the season.
Austin Roden made 19 saves for his 8
th win of the season. The Knights were 1 for 4 on the power play and killed off 1 of the 2 Minuteman chances.
Clarkson will play their final 2 non conference games of the regular season next weekend as they travel to Western NY to face RIT on Friday and Canisius on Saturday.
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For more information about Clarkson Athletics visit www.clarksonathletics.com and to learn more about the ECAC, visit
www.ecachockey.com/sports/mhockey
