Oswego may be national champions, but Plattsburgh owns their rink.<\/p>\n
For the second year in a row, Plattsburgh defeated Oswego in the second
\nyear of the Campus Center Ice Arena. Last year it was 4-1. This time
\nit was 4-2 with an empty netter to clinch.<\/p>\n
“Of course I’m disappointed with the result, but I was very pleased with
\nthe effort,” Oswego coach Ed Gosek said.<\/p>\n
“I thought there were a lot of grade A scoring chances on both teams,”
\nPlattsburgh coach Bob Emery said. “I think it could have been easily a
\n10-9 game if there weren’t good goaltending on either end.”<\/p>\n
Clearly the most intense rivalry in the SUNYAC took to the stage for the
\n91st time. A standing room only Campus Center Ice Arena, with most of
\nthe home fans wearing white, as Oswego for the second year in a row
\nattempts to rid itself of the dreaded bagel tradition into a whiteout
\naffair, greeted the teams.<\/p>\n
However, it was Plattsburgh who got on the board first with a goal that
\ninitially many didn’t know went in. The shot was taken inside the left
\npoint through a partial screen. Ryan Scott went down, thought he had
\nit, but it somehow sneaked through. Even the Cardinals didn’t celebrate
\nright away until the referee signaled a goal.<\/p>\n
Following two successive Plattsburgh penalties that gave Oswego a
\ntwo-man advantage, Emery surprisingly called time out.<\/p>\n
“In hindsight I wouldn’t have taken it as they still scored,” Emery
\nsaid. “I had my best defenseman, Nick Rolls, tired. I was trying to
\ntake a one goal lead into the locker room. I wanted to rest him. I
\nwanted to get our best penalty killer on the ice. If it works, I’m a
\ngenius but it didn’t because they scored on it.”<\/p>\n
The tying goal was never in doubt. Neil Musselwhite skated in the zone
\nto his left. At the top of the faceoff circle, he let go a highlight
\nreel shot. It flew over the opposite shoulder of Bryan Hince, smacked
\nthe posts, and bounced down and in.<\/p>\n
The first period ended as evenly as it could — one goal each, eleven
\nshots each, and virtually even territorially control.<\/p>\n
The second period was not as even as Plattsburgh started to take control
\nof the game, out shooting Oswego, 10-6, and scoring both goals to take a
\n3-1 lead.<\/p>\n
“I think we were able to get them to cough up a few pucks in the neutral
\nzone,” Emery said of the second period.<\/p>\n
“Penalties on our part,” Gosek said. “Can’t take that many penalties
\nand constantly be in the defensive mode, killing off penalties.”<\/p>\n
The go-ahead goal came the moment an Oswego penalty expired. Ward Smith
\nwristed a waist high shot from the left side that appeared to have
\nfooled Scott, sailing past him untouched.<\/p>\n
Almost ten minutes later Plattsburgh scored the type of goal that can
\nbreak a team’s back. With the puck about to exit the zone, Nick Rolls
\ngot it, but was facing the wrong way. He simply flipped it backwards
\ntowards the net.<\/p>\n
The old adage, good things come from throwing the puck at the net came
\ntrue. Dylan Clarke was standing unseen at the backdoor, and easily
\ntipped in the puck.<\/p>\n
The Lakers came out flying for the final period as Gosek must have lit a
\nfire under them. It didn’t take long for the swarming in front of Hince
\nto pay off — just 1:19. Ryan Ellis fired it from in close, and the
\ncrowd was now completely back into the game.<\/p>\n
Plattsburgh had an opportunity to quickly turn the momentum right back
\nto their favor just a couple of minutes later when C.J. Tozzo went in on
\na breakaway. However, Scott played it very aggressively, diving at the
\npuck, knocking it away with his stick.<\/p>\n
“We needed a break, we needed a play out of someone,” Gosek said. “I
\nwas hoping that was it. But, it wasn’t there tonight.”<\/p>\n
The goal lead became ever more tenuous as Oswego was all over the
\nPlattsburgh zone.<\/p>\n
“I thought we were much better not getting selfish near the end,” Gosek
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
“It didn’t sink in to all the guys,” Emery said about what he told his
\nteam. “Don’t play the game not to lose, play the game to win. We had
\nsome guys panicking with the puck in the defensive zone. We had to
\nshorten the bench and get those guys out of the game.”<\/p>\n
“Guys are trying so hard, squeezing the sticks so tight, we can’t get a
\nbounce,” Gosek said. “You’d think in the third one of those are going
\nto go, bounce off a leg, or something. But it didn’t happen.”<\/p>\n
Instead, T.J. Cooper scored an empty net goal to clinch the game.<\/p>\n
Plattsburgh goes to 4-0, all within the conference. They travel to
\nCortland which has been a thorn on the Cardinals side recently.<\/p>\n
“It’s not easy getting ready them ready for Cortland, no doubt about
\nthat,” Emery said. “Let them enjoy the win, and we’ll see what kind of
\nleadership we have going into the Cortland game, because we are going to
\nneed a lot of leadership.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Oswego, stunningly, has gotten off to a 0-2-1 start. They
\nhost Potsdam, who beat Cortland, 4-2, tonight.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t gotten off to the start we wanted,” Gosek said. “Potsdam is
\na team that will come in with everything to gain and nothing to lose.
\nWe need to relax and try to have some fun.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oswego may be national champions, but Plattsburgh owns their rink. For the second year in a row, Plattsburgh defeated Oswego in the second year of the Campus Center Ice Arena. Last year it was 4-1. This time it was 4-2 with an empty netter to clinch. “Of course I’m disappointed with the result, but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8340"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}