Geneseo came into Oswego for a first place battle in the SUNYAC. The game lived up to its billing in a hard-fought, back-and-forth contest which wasn’t settled until the final buzzer.
For the second night in a row, Oswego’s David Titanic scored a key goal. This time it was the game-winner with 4:44 left to give the Lakers a 4-3 victory. The win vaulted Oswego over Geneseo for the top spot by one point.
“I thought it was a gutty, gritty performance,” Oswego coach Ed Gosek said. “And I say gutty and gritty because of the amount of guys out of the lineup and the amount of guys who played injured and hurt who would not have played tonight had we had bodies available. Zach Josepher playing up on the wing because we had no one available.”
“I’m pretty pleased with the way we played,” Geneseo coach Chris Schultz said. “I think we limited their chances for the most part, giving up 18 shots the entire game, taking away the neutral zone as much as possible, eliminating the odd-man rushes. A couple of really bad bounces which ended up in our net is the difference in the game.”
The game ultimately came down to Titanic’s goal, coming just a few minutes after Geneseo tied it. Titanic fired one from the top of the left circle which sailed into the opposite upper corner.
“It was a little bit of a lucky bounce,” Titanic said. “Just trying to put pucks to the net. It hit the defender’s stick and went in. I didn’t even know it went in until everyone started cheering.”
The game started out with two Oswego defensive giveaways, resulting in two first period Geneseo goals sandwiched around an Oswego tally. The first came quickly and the second came late, at 1:01 and 19:02, respectively.
Kaz Iwamoto picked up the puck along the right boards and fed Corbin Rosmarin down low, who redirected it past Andrew Hare for the first.
On the second, Tyler Brickler skated across the slot and found Carson Schell at the crease completely unmarked. Schell almost lost control of the puck, but was able to slide a shot past Hare for the 2-1 lead.
“They took advantage of our own self-inflicted mistakes,” Gosek said.
In between, Paul Rodrigues fired a blast from the top of the left circle while on the power play which flew by Adrian Rubeniuk.
Gosek has his troops fired up after the first intermission, as the Lakers came out flying, swarming all over the Ice Knights’ net.
“[I told them] we’re a better team than we showed,” Gosek said of the first intermission. “I thought in the second period, we were much better.”
The inevitable happened at 6:21 when Leimbrock from the left side sent a centering pass where the trailer, Zach Josepher, fired it over Rubeniuk’s glove.
At the nine-minute mark, Oswego grabbed its first lead of the night when a Luke Moodie shot deflected off Jon Whitelaw’s stationary skate into the net.
“I wasn’t concerned because we were still sticking to our system,” Schultz said. “They weren’t getting many big-time scoring opportunities. We just have to work our way out of it. You know it was going to be a close game at the end. I’d rather wait for that timeout at the end at a critical time.”
Geneseo ended up getting the next goal to tie the game at three at 12:32. After Jack Caradonna’s shot went off the post, Brickler backhanded the rebound. Hare stopped it, but the rebound went right to Rosmarin off the side of the net, and he easily swept the puck into the open net for the power-play tally.
Oswego didn’t panic, as Titanic came up with the game-winner less than three minutes later.
Hare made 23 saves for the win.
