Cornell leaves Connecticut 1-4-1
ECRHA November 7th, 2007 at 2:24PM November 7th, 2007 9:52PMCornell's NCRHA team battled hard in three close games last weekend at Glastonbury, CT. With one divisional opponent matchup against Albany and two games against rivals Maine and Vermont, there was some hope on improving upon the 1-2 record, but ultimately came up short.
On Saturday, Cornell lost a close game to Albany 6-5. Albany opened scoring on a perfect roofed shot on a two on one, but Cornell tied things up shortly after when Tom Botsford backhanded a shot from a pretty Steve Clark feed. Albany scored again on a soft goal to close out the period 2-1. Albany jumped out to a 3-1 lead on a powerplay goal resulting from a failed pokecheck attempt, but Chris Grieco quickly made it 3-2 on a feed from Michael Spooner. Albany then proceeded to dominate the remainder of the period, scoring two weak goals on screen shots. In the third period, Spooner went on a tear, scoring a natural hat-trick to tie things up 5-5. Unfortunately, Albany scored another soft screen goal for the winner. Goalie Mark Amato made 25 saves on 31 shots.
Saturday night saw Cornell playing Vermont, a team they had beaten 5-3 in preseason. Cornell bombarded Vermont goalie Luke Brindamour with 39 shots, but Brindamour played a spectacular game, shutting out Cornell in the first two periods and allowing his team to go up 2-0 on a tap in and a rebound goal. In the third period, Spooner had a goal and an assit on a goal by Chris Grieco to tie things up 2-2, but Brindamour shut down all other bids. Vermont scored the winner on a soft goal with 4 minutes left. Amato made 19 saves on 22 shots.
Cornell played Maine on Sunday morning, bent on coming out of the weekend with a win. Unfortunately, poor goaltending again came to bear, with Maine getting out to a quick start on a blown pokecheck that turned into a quick 1-0 lead. Maine made it 2-0 on a soft 3-2 power play goal. In the second, Maine went up 3-0 on a 2-0 that should have been saved. Cornell finally broke the shutout halfway through the second on a Ryan Musa goal. In the third, Chris Grieco and Kirk Jensen scored to tie up the game at 3-3, but a defensive breakdown left a Maine player alone in front of the net and he buried a shot stick side that probably should have been stopped. Thankfully, Ben Wagner put in a pretty cross-rink feed from Justin Lindemann with a minute remaining to tie it up 4-4. Amato made 18 saves on 22 shots.
Cornell looks to November 17th, when they hope to redeem themselves in Feasterville.