HAMILTON — Across two evenings against upstate New York rival Colgate, No. 12 men’s hockey trailed by two goals three separate times.
Twice the Red was able to overcome that deficit.
But three times proved to be too many for Cornell, as it suffered a crushing defeat to the Raiders in Hamilton on Saturday. After making it a 3-3 game early into the third period, a five-minute major penalty allowed Colgate to score twice in its 5-3 win over the Red.
The penalty was not originally called on the ice and prompted a coach’s challenge from the Raiders, which was deemed successful despite the lack of evidence or information relayed to the Cornell bench.
“We’re going to have to talk to the league about why the five-minute major was called in the first place. There’s no video evidence to show what the kid did,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86. “The league’s got to figure it out — we don’t make assumptions when we see the puck underneath the goalie’s pad. If you don’t see it, you can’t call it. … The league needs to look at it [and] needs to address it.”
Despite dominating in possession time, the Raiders took the game’s first penalty 11:02 into the contest. After losing the ensuing faceoff, the Red (5-3-3, 3-3-3 ECAC) struggled to break into its offensive zone and failed to register a shot as its man advantage expired.
Colgate (8-8-2, 5-2-1 ECAC) was far and away the better team in the first, and ultimately got the game’s first goal with just about five minutes left in the opening period.
After only notching one shot on goal for the majority of the period, a late resurgence by the Red ultimately boded it well. Sophomore forward Tyler Catalano found senior forward Kyler Kovich in the slot, with Kovich easily burying the puck blocker side for his first goal of the season and first tally since Nov. 11, 2022.
“Colgate played a good game,” Schafer said. “We didn’t play the way we need to play as a hockey team. The wheels fell off tonight.”
The Raiders used an early second-period penalty kill as fuel for the fire and regained the lead. A shot from Nic Belpedio ultimately beat Shane and sent the Class of 1965 Arena into a frenzy.
Trailing once again, Cornell tried to even the score and prevent the game from getting away. With just over five minutes to go in the second, coinciding roughing penalties from sophomore defenseman Hoyt Stanley and Colgate’s Simone Dadiè allowed for the teams to skate four aside.
Ultimately, it was Colgate that took advantage of the extra space, as Brett Merner fired a wrist shot from the right circle that beat Shane and extended the Raider lead to two goals.
Looking to stage a second two-goal comeback against the Raiders in as many nights, Cornell drew a penalty with less than a minute left in the second and earned a late chance to chip away at the lead.
That was a chance the Red took advantage of — a shot from the point by sophomore defenseman George Fegaras was deflected on the way in by senior forward Ondrej Psenicka, beating Andrew Takacs and cutting the deficit to 3-2 heading into the final frame.
That Fegaras-Psenicka combination proved to be the elixir to the Raiders’ pressure.
Though it was nearly 20 minutes in real time between Cornell’s second and third goals, only 2:01 elapsed in the game as Cornell took the score from 3-1 to 3-3.
1:41 into the third, Psenicka collected a pass from Fegaras and roofed it in the top left corner to tie the game up and erase the once two-score lead for Colgate.
Just a few minutes after the tying goal, though, perhaps the most pivotal moment of the game came when junior forward Sean Donaldson, who wasn’t originally called for a penalty, was penalized for five minutes after a Colgate coach’s challenge found a spearing penalty during play. A coinciding high-sticking penalty from senior defenseman Tim Rego dealt the Red a lofty task — killing two minutes of five-on-three play and another three minutes of power play time.
“Our kid says he didn’t butt-end him — he [said] he jammed his hand into his stomach,” Schafer said. “I don’t know whether to believe him or not, it’s kind of inconsequential but you’ve got to believe your players. They’re like your own kids, right?
Though the Red kept the Raiders at bay for nearly three of the five minutes, the Colgate advantage proved to be too much for the Cornell penalty killers. Colgate’s Michael Neumeier beat Shane on a clean wrister to give Colgate its third lead of the evening.
19 seconds later, the deficit was back to two goals.
“We just weren’t sharp in all areas,” Schafer said. “Our goaltending wasn’t sharp, a lot of guys weren’t sharp.”
Shane was pulled after allowing his fifth goal on 19 shots, making way for junior goaltender Remington Keopple to enter the game and earn his first minutes of the season. Shane was also pulled in the Colgate series his sophomore year when he surrendered four goals in 15 minutes on Feb. 11, 2023.
An evidently dejected group of skaters in red skated through the motions until the buzzer sounded.
“I know our guys are banged up,” Schafer said, referring to the growing list of injuries that has racked the Red’s roster. “But we only had to play one game tonight and we couldn’t suck it up and play the way we needed to play, and that’s something we have to discuss as a team.”
Schafer pulled Keopple with just under two minutes remaining looking to make yet another comeback, but the Raiders — after an empty-netter — ultimately went home as victors as Cornell suffered a crushing blow in both the Pairwise and the ECAC standings.
“A lot of inconsistency,” Schafer said when asked about the first half of the season. “We came out and weren’t patient on the road, turned a lot of pucks over, and [there was] a lack of discipline.”
The Red will have to deal with a sour taste in its mouth for longer than usual. Cornell won’t be back in action until Jan. 3 when it takes on the University of Massachusetts in the first of two games in Tempe, Arizona at the Desert Hockey Invitational.
“It’s really disappointing to go into the Christmas break on that sour note,” Schafer said.”