Sunday, December 7, 2014

TWO NIGHTS. TWO OPPONENTS. TWO SHUTOUTS

Senior Aaron Green (Mt. Albert, ONT) did it again making 22 saves as The College at Brockport won a 3-0 victory over Fredonia Saturday night in a State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) game at the Tuttle North Ice Arena in Brockport. No other Brockport team was able to win back-to-back games with shutout wins since varsity hockey started at Brockport in 1973.

Brockport (6-5-1 Overall, 3-3-1 SUNYAC) won for the fourth consecutive game and have lost just once min the past seven games (5-1-1). The closest the Golden Eagles have ever come to consecutive shutouts was back in 1973-74 when Brockport won a 9-0 victory over St. John Fisher. The game prior to that, Brockport won 11-1 over Rutgers and the game following St. John Fisher, Brockport won 9-1 over Canisius.

After two scoreless periods Saturday, Aidan Verbeke (Elmwood Park, IL) scored his second goal in as many nights 4:38 into the final period to break the tie.

Jake Taylor
(Port Perry, ONT) fired a shot from the right of the slot area that was deflected by a diving Fredonia (1-5-3, 0-4-2) defender and Verbeke found himself with the puck on the door step with a wide open half of the net and slapped home the first goal of the game.

The score remained 1-0 until late in the period when Brockport broke into the Fredonia zone with Chase Nieuwendyk (Georgetown, ONT) sending a quick pass to Zac Sikich (Oak Park, CA) who then threaded a perfect pass to Ryan Kangas (Williamstown, MA) for the quick shot into the back of the goal for the 2-0 lead.

Fredonia called a time out and tried to narrow the gap by pulling its goalie for the extra attacker but a turnover in the Brockport zone led to an empty net for the 3-0 Brockport lead with 26 seconds to play.

Green finished with 22 saves and has a streak of nearly 160 consecutive scoreless minutes dating back to the second period of the Manhattanville game.