It was a tale of two games.<\/p>\n
In the first two periods, Oswego opened a commanding 4-0 lead
\nover Geneseo, outshooting the Ice Knights, 21-10.<\/p>\n
For the third period, Geneseo nearly mounted a shocking comeback,
\noutscoring Oswego, 4-1, but ultimately falling short as Oswego
\neked out a 5-4 win.<\/p>\n
“I give them credit,” Oswego coach Ed Gosek said. “We just came out
\nflat, back on our heels in the third. We give up the most goals in the
\ngame in the third. We give up the most shots in the third. Tonight,
\nthe third period again not very good. I have a hard time believing it’s
\nthe conditioning as much as it’s the focus. You let the team back in it
\nand then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the typical scenario. They get some momentum and you’re
\nback on your heels.”<\/p>\n
Geneseo coach Chris Schultz said of the third period turnaround, “Making
\nsure the guys followed their leaders, making sure they followed the
\nseniors’ lead going into the period. They’ve been there before; they
\nhave that never say die attitude you need to win games like this.”<\/p>\n
The Lakers got their first goal at 7:23 when Rich Zalewski shot in a
\nrebound from the left faceoff circle. The initial shot from the right
\nside was stopped, but when the rebound came out, Derek Jokic was down on
\nthe ice on his back, enabling Zalewski to easily place it just inside
\nthe near post.<\/p>\n
Oswego used a rekindled power play (only 16.2% coming into tonight’s
\ngame), scoring the next three goals on their first five extra man
\nopportunities, including two during a major penalty.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t want to dwell on the 16% leading up to tonight’s game,” Gosek
\nsaid. “When you get that sort of stat, it takes forever to try to get
\nit up. So we said forget it, we’re starting from scratch here tonight.
\n Let’s finish the last five games and get it at 25% if we can and have
\nsome confidence in the PP heading into the playoffs.”<\/p>\n
Oswego nearly got their second goal on their first power play when Neil
\nMusselwhite beat the defense and went in alone. However, Jokic made a
\ngreat glove save on the backhand attempt. It wouldn’t be till the next
\nset of penalties on Geneseo before Oswego doubled their lead.<\/p>\n
Despite pounding the net during a two-man advantage, Oswego didn’t get
\ntheir second goal until the first penalty expired. Matt Whitehead
\ncaught the defense flat footed, and zipped around them to go in alone on
\nJokic. Whitehead faked going to his forehand, and backhanded it from
\nthe right side over Jokic’s glove at 17:11.<\/p>\n
The lead doubled again at the tail end of the second period when Oswego
\nscored twice in a 1:21 span during the same penalty which was a major
\nfor hitting from behind and a game misconduct on Andrew Rygiel.<\/p>\n
Brendan McLaughlin parked himself by the right post and converted a
\nperfect backdoor tip after receiving a cross-ice pass from Zalewski.<\/p>\n
Zalewski then continued to be part of every goal to that point when he
\nscored his second of the night on a blast from the right point. The
\npuck hit a bar in the back of the net and came out so fast it caused a
\ndelayed celebration, waiting for the referee to signal it was in.<\/p>\n
The second period ended 4-0 and saw Geneseo only get four shots on goal.
\n Zalewski had two goals and two assists.<\/p>\n
“I thought he played well not just offensively, but I thought he played
\nvery well defensively,” Gosek said “I thought he did very well moving
\nthe puck. I thought he played a pretty mistake free game.”<\/p>\n
Then came the “second” game.<\/p>\n
At 2:12 of the final period. Dave Schroeder banged in the puck from
\nclose range as Oswego had difficulty clearing it out of the crease. It
\nended Scott’s 112:12 consecutive minutes of shutout hockey, dating back
\nto the previous game, a 6-0 shutout over Potsdam.<\/p>\n
Just over two minutes later at 4:37, the Ice Knights scored again, this
\ntime on the power play. Jonathon Dulude threw the puck at the net, and
\nthough Scott saw it all the way, he gave up the rebound. Brandon French
\nwas there to send it home.<\/p>\n
Oswego called time out, but Geneseo maintained the momentum. Before the
\nperiod was half over, suddenly Geneseo was just a goal behind.<\/p>\n
Dan Sullivan threw it towards the net from the side, and the puck banked
\noff Ryan Scott’s skate and into the net.<\/p>\n
What appeared to be a blowout quickly turned into a nail biter.
\nHowever, Oswego had had enough.<\/p>\n
After failing to score on a power play, the Lakers finally got one back.
\n Ellis and Lyon went in on a fast rush, Ellis from the right side passed
\nit across to Lyon. Without breaking his stride, Lyon one timed it past
\nJokic at full speed at 13:43.<\/p>\n
Geneseo was not going to go away. At 16:58 they were once again within
\na goal thanks to a power play tally by Trent Cassan. A shot went off
\nthe backboards, and Cassan was there in front to knock it in.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, Mathieu Cyr had a breakaway, tried to force it
\nthrough the five-hole, but Scott closed his pads in time. Meanwhile,
\nOswego had a few excellent opportunities to put the game away including
\na breakaway, but Jokic made some outstanding saves.<\/p>\n
“He’s really coming on now,” Schultz said of Jokic’s play. “He had a
\ncouple of bad games early on. He wasn’t coming up with that big save
\nthat you needed in game, and he certainly did that today. He did a very
\ngood job of coming up with that big save, giving us a chance to go down
\nthe other end. That’s what we need out of him.”<\/p>\n
Geneseo was able to get Jokic off the ice, but despite pressure, were
\nunable to get the equalizer.<\/p>\n
“We’ll take the win and hopefully we learn from it,” Gosek said. “At
\nthis time of year you can’t look back and be all negative. I thought we
\nplayed two solid periods leading into the third and then we let them
\nback in.”<\/p>\n
Oswego (9-2-1, 13-5-2) stays home to play Brockport, who is desperate
\nfor a win after losing to Cortland, 4-2.<\/p>\n
“They are a senior ladened team,” Gosek said of his upcoming opponents.
\n “This is it, they’re fighting for their lives. They have nothing to
\nhold back for. You have to match that intensity and you have to
\nexecute. Hopefully, we can get off to a good start and play a solid
\nthree periods of hockey for our last [home] game for our seniors.”<\/p>\n
Geneseo (5-7-0, 6-14-0) travels to Cortland needing a win as the Red
\nDragons are one point ahead for the final playoff spot.<\/p>\n
“It goes back to keeping your emotions stable, taking things shift by
\nshift,” Schultz said of the upcoming must win game. “You can’t look
\nahead at all. If you start looking ahead, that’s when you’re going to
\nget yourself in trouble. It certainly will be a gut check, but we did
\nit last weekend. We lost to Buffalo State and came back and played a
\nsolid game against Fredonia. We’re going to expect to do the same thing
\ntomorrow.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a tale of two games. In the first two periods, Oswego opened a commanding 4-0 lead over Geneseo, outshooting the Ice Knights, 21-10. For the third period, Geneseo nearly mounted a shocking comeback, outscoring Oswego, 4-1, but ultimately falling short as Oswego eked out a 5-4 win. “I give them credit,” Oswego coach […]<\/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\/8688"}],"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=8688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8688\/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=8688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8688"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}