Box Score (PDF)
 
ITHACA, N.Y. — Teemu Tiitinen and Jake Weidner staked the Cornell men's hockey team to an early lead, and Mitch Gillam made 27 saves — including a penalty shot midway through the third period — to lead the #14/15 Big Red to a 2-1 victory over #13/13 St. Lawrence on Friday night at Lynah Rink.
 
Playing against one of the best transition teams in the league and largely regarded as one of the most defensive-minded teams itself, the Big Red effectively turned the tables against the Saints. Both Cornell goals came in transition, and the Big Red was able to stymie a St. Lawrence attack which features some of the most offensively inclined defensemen in the country. Cornell (7-1-2, 5-1-1) is now unbeaten in its last six games (4-0-2).
 
Tiitinen got the Big Red rolling with his first goal of the season just 2:10 into the game. Trevor Yates came up the left wing into the neutral zone and chipped the puck along the boards past a pinching defenseman to send Tiitinen up ice. As he entered the zone, the last remaining defender stayed with Alex Rauter coming down the slot. That gave Tiitinen space to bring the puck to his forehand as he got to the bottom of the circle before snapping a shot over the right pad of St. Lawrence goalie Kyle Hayton.
 
Weidner doubled the lead at the 15:32 mark of the second period. Playing in his 39th career game as one of the Big Red's mainstays on defense, Dan Wedman earned his first career point by turning the play up ice from his zone as SLU was changing lines. Matt Buckles then sent Weidner into the zone on the right wing, and — with a defender backing up — he had plenty of time to line up a perfect wrist shot past Hayton's blocker, off the far post and into the net.
 
Gillam, who recorded the third-longest shutout streak in program history last month, continued his strong play by keeping the Saints mostly at bay. SLU's only goal came 2:12 into the third, when Ryan Lough won a faceoff in the Cornell zone, then Gavin Bayreuther and Woody Hudson played catch along the blue line before Bayreuther found some room to wrist a 50-foot shot through traffic over Gillam's blocker.
 
But the lead would stand up, mostly because of a wild sequence with 11:01 to play in the third. Gillam made a save on a long shot from Nolan Gluchowski, then Woody Hudson's whack at another rebound was blocked. One last effort came from Lough who had Gillam beat, but Cornell defenseman Ryan Bliss made the stop on his knees in the crease and swiveled his legs around to keep the puck from crossing the line. Video review was inconclusive to overturn the original on-ice ruling of no goal, but Bliss was also deemed to have played the puck with his hands in the crease — resulting in a penalty shot. Lough took the attempt and made a move to his forehand which Gillam stopped.
 
St. Lawrence's last gasp came with 2:09 to play when Bayreuther's long shot was stopped, then the rebound lingered perilously in traffic in the slot before kicking into open ice near the right hash mark. Bayreuther was closing in to take a shot at the vacated wide side of the net, but both Yates and Rauter made diving efforts to thwart the attempt.
 
Cornell wraps up the fall semester portion of its schedule at 7 p.m. Saturday when it hosts Clarkson. The Big Red will then have a hiatus of a little more than three weeks before reconvening for the Florida College Classic, which opens Dec. 28 against defending national champion and top-ranked Providence.