ITHACA, N.Y. – The men's hockey team has gotten used to being the hunted late in games recently. But  on Friday night, the Big Red showed it's also quite capable as the hunter.
 
Junior forward Greg Miller scored two goals, the latter serving as the game-winner with 8:56 remaining in the third period as part of five unanswered Big Red goals in a 5-2 victory over visiting Brown at sold-out Lynah Rink. The win guarantees the Big Red at least a share of the Ivy League title for the first time since 2004-05. A tie or victory over three-time defending champion Yale on Saturday night will give Cornell the crown outright.
 
Miller's linemates, freshman Brian Ferlin and sophomore Dustin Mowrey, each had a pair of assists Friday, and junior forward John Esposito had a goal in his first appearance following an absence of seven games due to injury. Sophomore goalie Andy Iles made 22 saves in the victory, which broke the 13th-ranked Big Red's five-game winless streak.
 
It was an interesting winning recipe for Cornell (12-6-6, 9-3-5 ECAC Hockey), which hasn't trailed by two or more goals in the first two periods of a game since the last time it faced Brown more than three months ago in Providence, R.I. The Big Red gradually took control of the first period with Esposito being the first to challenge Brown goalie Mike Clemente with a shot that clanked off the netminder's mask at the 7:30 mark. It kicked off a stretch of nine consecutive Big Red shots on goal. But two Cornell power plays yielded nothing, and Brown capitalized in the dying moments of the frame.
 
With the faceoff to Iles' left with six seconds remaining , Brown faceoff ace Jack Maclellan stepped into the circle against Miller. It turned out to be the only draw of six in the period that Maclellan lost, but no one from the Big Red took control of the play. Instead, a defender's poke from the slot pushed the puck right into the path of Matt Lorito crashing the net from the halfwall, and the freshman roofed a shot over Iles' glove with 2.6 seconds left before the intermission.
 
The momentum stayed with the visitors early in the second period, too. Ryan Jacobson's perfect redirection out of mid-air was virtually undefendable, giving Brown a 2-0 lead just 4:29 into the middle frame.

Cornell responded on a strange goal in which Brown actually had too many skaters on the ice – but it worked to the Big Red's advantage. After a Brown shot went wide of Iles and caromed up the wall, Mowrey chipped the puck to Ferlin near the Brown blue line. What appeared to be a run-of-the-mill three-on-three turned noteworthy when one of the Bears' defenders realized the man-power discrepency and drifted toward the bench. This left the other defenders out of position and allowed Ferlin to make a pass to Miller that gave him an in-zone breakaway from the right wing. Miller snapped a shot under Clemente's blocker to cut the hosts' lead in half.
 
The equalizer came from none other than Esposito. He gained possession in the Big Red zone and sent a pass leading senior forward Locke Jilson into the neutral zone. Jillson dropped the puck back to Esposito with a head of steam at the Brown blue line. He was able to turn his defender inside out to create some space in the slot, then beat Clemente between the legs at 11:43.
 
Two textbook goals on the rush were then followed by two textbook goals off the boards. Miller scored the winner after his line dominated the Bears down low. Ferlin eventually cycled behind the net and fed a pass through the crease to Miller in the slot for a short-range conversion, giving the Big Red its first lead of the game. Just 1:15 later, junior forward Vince Mihalek provided insurance with his second goal of the season on a rebound after a similar shift with linemates Erik Axell and Armand de Swardt. The assist was de Swardt's first point of the season.
 
Miller has scored goals in each of the last four games and has a team-leading 11 tallies on the season. He also assisted on Cole Bardreau's empty-netter to cap the scoring to push his team-leading points total to 23. That gave him three points on the night – a first for the Big Red since Ferlin did it on Nov. 4, 2011 at Yale.
 
Notes: With two assists, Mowrey now has a five-game point streak. He also has 12 points over his last 11 games after posting three points in his first 13 games. … Friday's victory ended the Big Red's three-game losing streak to Brown and marked its first victory over the Bears since March 19, 2010 in an ECAC Hockey Championship semifinal. … Cornell remains in second place in the league standings after first-place Union and third-place Colgate kept pace with their own Friday victories. The Big Red (23 points) trails the Dutchmen (26) -- who are idle Saturday night -- by three points, while leading the Raiders (21) by two points. Harvard (20) tied Rensselaer, 2-2, to maintain sole possession of fourth place ahead of Clarkson (19), which defeated Princeton on Friday.
 
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