Friday, January 4, 2019

Colgate stuns #5 Quinnipiac 5-4 in overtime

Colgate stunned #5 Quinnipiac 5-4 in overtime

Sixty minutes. That is the number of minutes you are required to play in order to win a hockey game. Tonight the Quinnipiac Bobcats played probably about fifteen minutes of good hockey in this game and even against a team that on paper is not as good as them in Colgate, fifteen minutes is just not enough to win you a game even against teams lesser than them. The Raiders shocked the #5 Quinnipiac Bobcats 5-4 in overtime at the People's United Bank Center on Friday night in the teams return to ECAC conference play.

What started out as a possible blowout in favor of Quinnipiac turned into one of the most shocking losses that the Bobcats have suffered in a long time. Colgate came into this game one of the worst offensive teams in the country and a team that Quinnipiac easily dispatched on Long Island 6-0. In fact they had beaten Colgate twice by a combined score of 11-0. Games are not won on paper and you need to bring the effort to the rink every night if you expect to win. In this one you have to give Colgate a lot of credit for winning battles to pucks, fore-checking and just being the better team tonight in almost sixty three minutes of hockey.

Things looked promising for Quinnipiac early as they scored just 1:06 into the game by William Fallstrom. They added two more goals by Wyatt Bongiovanni and Scott Davidson and looked to be on their way to another easy win. Colgate found life after Quinnipiac took a too many men on the ice penalty resulted in a Trevor Cosgrove goal. Colgate trimmed the lead to just one goal almost four and a half minutes into the second period when Hunter Racine scored his first of the year.

Quinnipiac had a golden chance to blow this game wide open late in the second period when Colgate took back to back penalties with one being a five minute boarding major on Ken Citron. Just forty-two seconds into the third period saw Quinnipiac extend the lead back to two on Odeen Tufto's 11th goal of the season. The power play ended when Brogan Rafferty took a holding call in front of the Quinnipiac net putting the teams skating four aside. Colgate got a shorten power play and capitalize on a Nick Austin goal to trim the lead back to a lone goal.

Colgate outplayed Quinnipiac for the majority of this game

After Willie Brooks tied the game, Rand Pecknold replaced Keith Petruzzelli (17 saves) with Andrew Shortridge. The newly minted ECAC goaltender of the month for December saved Quinnipiac a few times late in the third period when Colgate sustained a magnitude of pressure in the Bobcats zone. The teams headed to overtime where just over halfway in Ben Sharf fed Jeff Stewart who blew past Brogan Rafferty and put the puck under Shortridge for the game winner. The hard luck loss was the first suffered by Shortridge (7 saves) on the season as he previously had been 7-0.

Brandon Fortunato had three assists while Chase Priskie had two assists as the Bobcats suffered their first ECAC loss since a 5-1 loss to Union back on November 10th. Quinnipiac returns to action tomorrow night for a big showdown with #20 Cornell at the People's United Bank Center.


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