Box Score

ITHACA, N.Y. – First-period goals by Chris Wagner and Joe Wilson powered the Colgate men's hockey team to a 2-1 victory over #6/9 Cornell on Friday night at Lynah Rink, ending the Big Red's seven-game unbeaten streak.
 
Freshman defenseman Joakim Ryan scored the Big Red's lone goal in the second period, but the hosts never produced an equalizer. Cornell (11-5-4, 8-2-3 ECAC Hockey) mustered just one shot on goal in the third period – which also came off Ryan's stick, though it came from just inside the blue line and was easily turned away by Colgate goalie Eric Mihalik. He made 17 saves for the victory – the Raiders' first against the Big Red 12 tries, dating back to Jan. 25, 2007.
 
Colgate (13-9-3, 7-5-1), which broke a six-game winless skid with the victory, wasted little time in brandishing their elite forwards. Even though Cornell had the game's first power play, it was Colgate which that scored the game's first goal. Jeremy Price's home-run pass from deep in his own zone skipped over the Big Red defender's stick and found Wagner on the other side of the center ice. Wagner waited for Austin Smith – who leads the nation in goal scoring – to jump into the play and create a two-on-one, then feathered a perfect pass across the slot. Smith patiently waited on the scrambling Big Red defense, then slipped a pass back across to Wagner charging on the left side for an easy conversion at 4:03.
 
Sophomore goalie Andy Iles did extremely well to keep Cornell in the game as the period progressed. At 6:55, a defensive turnover led to another Wagner/Smith two-on-one from within the Big Red zone, but Iles stretched to his right to make an incredible save with his skate. Right around the 9-minute mark, Iles was forced to make a point-blank save on Wagner on a Raiders power play. Then, at 11:15, a blocked Price shot kicked out to a wide-open Robbie Bourdon in the left circle, but Iles somehow stayed with the play and made another quality save.
 
But Colgate would break through again 2:44 before the intermission. Nick Prockow worked the puck along the right wall down to Kurtis Bartliff. He then centered a pass that found Wilson beat his defender to the slot, and Wilson beat Iles with a quick shot along the ice and inside the left post.
 
The Big Red actually led in shots on goal after the first period, 9-7, but had far fewer ominous scoring chances than the Raiders. Only freshman forward Madison Dias' improbable mid-air redirection of a shot from distance was an immediate threat, but the puck bounced off Mihalik's left arm and harmlessly into the corner.
 
Cornell finally broke through in the middle frame on Ryan's sixth goal of the season and second in as many games. After junior forward Greg Miller's line sustained pressure in the Colgate zone, sophomore forward Dustin Mowrey and junior defenseman Nick D'Agostino worked to keep possession hold the zone at the left point when D'Agostino whipped a blind pass across the ice. The puck caromed off the boards on the right wing and into the path of Ryan, who was able to skate into the space toward the top of the right circle before zipping a shot high to the near post over a screened Mihalik's shoulder.
 
The third period didn't feature much in the way of offense and just six shots on goal. But there was plenty of physical play, peaking with freshman forward Joel Lowry's thundering hit on Corbin McPherson in front of the Big Red bench just a minute into the frame, then classmate John McCarron's textbook open-ice hit on Smith nine minutes later.
 
The loss was the Big Red's first on a Friday this season, after it started the campaign with an 8-0 record on the week's sixth day. Cornell and Colgate meet again at 7 p.m. Saturday, but with the rematch at the Raiders' Starr Rink in Hamilton.