Princeton University
Cornell
Seeing Red
February 08, 2002 | Men's Ice Hockey
Feb. 8, 2002
ITHACA, N.Y. - The Princeton men's hockey team went to Ithaca looking to knock off league-leading Cornell, ranked No. 8 in the nation, but was handed a 5-1 loss in Eastern College Athletic Conference action in front of a capacity crowd at Lynah Rink. The Tigers are now 0-9 in their last nine appearances at Lynah Rink.
Princeton trailed 1-0 at the end of the first period, but had its share of chances to get on the board. Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer (So., Manlius, NY) had the best chance at 3:05 of the period when Brad Parsons (Sr., Kingston, MA) gave him a great feed from the blue line. Fouladgar-Mercer fired a shot and had Cornell netminder Matt Underhill beat to the glove side but the puck caught the pipe and was deflected into the corner.
Cornell came back the other way and Brian McMeekin was able to slip a backhander past Princeton goalie Stathos to give the Big Red a 1-0 lead at 4:20 of the first period. Mike Iggulden and Ryan Vesce assisted on the score Princeton had a chance to knot the score at 12:32 as Neil McCann (Jr., Calgary, ALB) cleared the puck out of the defensive zone and off the boards. Fouladgar-Mercer was able to sneak behind a Cornell defender and beat him to the puck. He got a shot off but was once again denied by Underhill, who finished the period with 10 saves.
The Big Red jumped out to a 2-0 lead with a goal from Matt McRae at 1:27 of the second period. Doug Murray fed the puck from center ice to McRae, who was skating up the right side, and McRae collected the puck and parked it in the upper right corner of the net.
Cornell almost stretched the lead to three while skating on their first power play opportunity of the game when Stephen Baby clanked a shot off the left pipe from just inside the circle four minutes into the period.
The Big Red took a 3-0 lead at 5:52 of the second period. David Kozier took a shot from and Princeton netminder Dave Stathos (Sr., Longueuil, QUE) was able to get a piece of the puck with his blocker, but it ended up in the back of the net.
Princeton finally got on the board at 12:32 with a goal from Josh Roberts (Sr., Orleans, MA). Parsons got the puck from Matt Maglione (So., Fayetteville, NY) and gave Roberts a pretty feed tight in front of the net and he was able to seal the deal and cut the Big Red lead to 3-1.
It was Roberts' first goal of the season and Princeton's first against Cornell in six periods of play, tracing back to Shane Campbell's goal at 10:15 of the second period in game two of last year's first round ECAC first playoff series. Cornell won that game 2-1 to advance to Lake Placid.
Cornell came back the other way and stretched its lead back to three at 5:41. Kryzsztof Wieckowski came streaking up the left side of the ice with the puck and fed a trailing David Francis on the right side of the net. Francis had a wide open net and gave the Big Red a 4-1 lead.
Parsons thought he had a goal at 18:06 but Underhill stopped the puck just short of the goal line to preserve the lead.
The score remained 4-1 until 17:47. Greg Hornby took a feed from Shane Palahicky and found the back of the net to give Cornell a 5-1 lead.
Stathos finished the game with 32 saves, including 15 in the final period. Underhill stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced.
Princeton will travel to Colgate on Saturday for a 7 p.m. game. A win over the Raiders would give the Tigers their first outright season sweep over Colgate since 1996-97. Princeton will return home next weekend to host Rensselaer and Union.
Princeton (7-15-0, 6-9-0 ECAC, 2-5-0 Ivy) 0 1 0 - 1 Cornell (16-5-1, 12-2-1 ECAC, 5-2-1 Ivy) 1 3 1 - 5
Scoring by Periods P - 0-1- C - 1-3-First Period C-1 Brian McMeekin (1) (Mike Iggulden, Ryan Vesce) 4:20
Second Period C-2 Matt McRae (6) (Doug Murray) 1:20 C-3 David Kozier (4) (Jeremy Downs) 5:52 P-1 Josh Roberts (1) (Brad Parsons, David Schneider) 12:32 C-4 David Francis (3) (Krzysztof Wieckowski, Travis Bell) 14:19
Third Period C-5 Greg Hornby (3) (Shane Palahicky) 17:47
Shots P - 10-9-9 C - 10-11-16
Penalties Princeton - 4 for 8 Cornell - 3 for 6
Power Play Princeton - 0 for 3 Cornell - 0 for 4
Goalies Dave Stathos (P) - 60:00, 32saves, 5 goals against Matt Underhill (C) - 60:00, 27 saves, 1 goals-against
Attendance: 3,836