Wednesday, November 18, 2015

STYLUS RECAP OF GENESO GAME

WBSU's John Panetta produced this report about last Friday's game for the Stylus...



Men's ice hockey hot start cooled off by Knights
The Brockport Golden Eagles ice hockey team dropped its seventh straight contest against the SUNY Geneseo Knights over the weekend, by a score of 4 – 2.

The last time the Golden Eagles defeated Geneseo was Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2011, when the team took a 6 – 1 victory over the Knights at the Wilson Ice Arena. Later in the year the two teams played to a 2 – 2 tie in Brockport.

Last Saturday in Geneseo was no different, with the Golden Eagles being outshot 49 – 28. Head Coach Brian Dickinson didn’t believe the difference in shots on-goal was the issue during the game.
“They outshot us a bit, but I wouldn’t get too caught up with the 49 [shots],” Dickinson said immediately following the game.

Geneseo struck first with freshman forward Sotiris Athanasopolous providing the go-ahead goal 11:25 into the game.

Brockport rebounded back and tied the game 26-seconds later with freshman forward Tim Kielich’s first career goal as a Brockport Golden Eagle, with assists going to senior and alternate captain Jeremy DeFazio.

With 19-seconds left in the first period, Geneseo re-took the lead as Geneseo senior forward David Ripple put the puck into the net.

In the second period Brockport would tie the game 2 – 2 as sophomore forward Ryan Kangas took advantage of a takeaway in the slot to score unassisted at 13:03 into the period.

The Golden Eagles ran into issues in the third period as penalties began to add up.

It is worth noting Brockport entered the game with a penalty killing percentage of 50 percent, which was one of the lowest in Division III, although the statistic is misleading because three of the five powerplay goals the team has given up this season occurred in the 8 – 7 victory over Morrisville State College, Saturday, Nov. 7.

The team started the period with senior defenseman Rob Hall in the penalty box and took four more penalties over the course of the game. In total, Brockport had 16 penalty minutes in the game.
Sophomore forward Zac Sikich was called for interference 6:47 into the period. Then at 7:56 junior forward Jake Taylor went into the box for hooking, forcing Brockport to kill off Geneseo’s five-on-three man advantage.

Brockport managed to kill off the penalties but seconds after returning to five-on-five, Geneseo junior forward Stephen Collins scored the eventual winning goal.

“It’s hard to win in this building as it is,” Dickinson said. “When you gotta kill off five-on-three late in the game and we actually did a great job, those kids were just battle, battle, battle and for that puck to go in right as we were getting back to five-on-five was really disheartening.”

Ripple scored his second goal of the night a few minutes later as Geneseo held on to defeat Brockport in the first of two meetings between the teams this season.

“All-in-all I thought for stretches of the game we were the better team and we just couldn’t get enough pucks in the net when we had our chances,” Dickinson said.

Things got heated on the ice for both sides, paired with strong emotions, an exciting and hard-fought game showcasing the passion present in the Brockport vs. Geneseo rivalry.

“In the third period it got a little bit of bad blood, and our emotions got a little bit away from us too,” Dickinson said.

After the game Dickinson also spoke about the Golden Eagles’ difficulties on special teams.

“We tweaked a little in practice this week and guys did a really good job of getting in lanes and getting sticks up and just really making sure that they couldn’t get those second and third chances,” Dickinson said.

This was Geneseo’s first win in SUNYAC play, only having tied in its previous conference games against SUNY Oswego and SUNY Cortland.

Brockport fell to 2 – 3 – 0 on the season, placing the team No. 4 in the SUNYAC with four total points. The Golden Eagles are currently in a tie for fourth place in the conference with Geneseo. 

Brockport will host the SUNY Fredonia Blue Devils Friday, Nov. 20, and take to the road to face the Buffalo State College Bengals Saturday, Nov. 21.



Source: http://www.thestylus.net/news/view.php/1014730/Mens-ice-hockey-hot-start-cooled-off-by-