CANTON, N.Y. — In a game that featured a slew of offensive fireworks, St. Lawrence defeated Union 6-3 Friday night.
The six goals equaled SLU’s output from a weekend ago against Penn State.
After the game, Saints coach Greg Carvel had mixed emotions about his team’s overall performance.
“I thought we were great with the puck, [but] without the puck, we made a few errors,” Carvel said. “We’ll take our two points. We had some outstanding individual efforts from some guys, Eric Sweetman and Joe Sullivan, but we’ll need to be better tomorrow night.”
St. Lawrence opened the scoring power play at the 11:55 mark of the first period. Gavin Bayreuther collected a pass from Nolan Gluchowski on the point and fired a slap shot that beat Jake Kupsky between the blocker and the pad.
The lead didn’t last long for St. Lawrence.
Just 50 seconds later, Michael Vecchione picked up a loose puck in the slot and beat Kyle Hayton high on the glove side.
Once again, the tie game was broken by a SLU defenseman, just 45 seconds later, as Sweetman shuffled sideways on the point before dragging the puck around a defender and into the high slot, where he fired a wrist shot past Kupsky.
The lead stood slightly longer for St. Lawrence this time, but Union was still able to even the odds late in the first on a reviewed goal. Hayton made the initial save on a Michael Pontarelli shot, but the loose puck in the crease was batted home by Ryan Scarfo to knot the game at 2-all going into the first intermission.
A four-goal second period opened the floodgates for St. Lawrence. The scoring began under two minutes into the middle frame when Alex Hagen fired a snap shot past Kupsky from the bottom of the right faceoff circle.
The Saints held their 3-2 lead for exactly 10 minutes until Vecchione again knotted the game for the Dutchmen. Vecchione was parked in the low slot on a Union power play and Matt Wilkins delivered the puck to the junior, who fired it past a diving Hayton.
The tie game lasted for just 30 seconds before Sullivan picked the rebound of a Sweetman shot up and flipped it over Kupsky’s right pad for the 4-3 lead.
“Eric had some nice poise with the puck, and he put it on net,” said Sullivan. “I was just there to clean up the rebound.”
The Saints never relinquished the lead again and Sullivan’s second of the night gave SLU a 5-3 lead.
“I beat the defender wide and cut to the net,” Sullivan recalled. “I pulled it to my backhand and was able to finish.”
Drew Smolcynski’s tally just 1:03 after Sullivan’s put the game away for St. Lawrence, as the Saints took a 6-3 lead after two periods.
“I thought we were dominant in the second,” said Carvel. “We made one mistake and they made us pay.”
Union coach Rick Bennett felt his team competed hard, despite the loss.
“That is an excellent team, and it was a good learning lesson for us,” said Bennett. “I wont give you the ‘that team is older and we are younger.'” That was a team that flat out wanted it more. I thought we were in there, and we showed a lot of fight, but it wasn’t for 60 minutes. You can’t fight for 30 minutes, or you’ll end up with a 6-3 loss.”
