Men’s hockey wanted revenge on Colgate.
In 2022, the class of 2025 was bounced from the ECAC quarterfinals after Colgate defeated the Red in three games at Lynah Rink.
Game one in that series was a 3-1 Cornell win.
Game one in the 2025 series, taking place at the Class of 1965 Arena, was a 4-1 Cornell win.
“I thought that we were solid,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86. “Just like the game we played them earlier in the year — we got to be ready for that pushback from them tomorrow.”
The Red took the first game in its best-of-three quarterfinal series against Colgate on Friday night. Cornell scored in each of the first two periods and found the back of the net twice in the third, putting them one win away from Lake Placid.
Freshman forward Charlie Major and senior forwards Kyle Penney and Kyler Kovich each had two-point games. Senior goaltender Ian Shane made 21 saves for a .955 save percentage to earn his 62nd career win.
It’s the first time Cornell has won three in a row all season.
“I thought it was a great win,” said sophomore forward Jonathan Castagna. “Very well deserved and exactly what you want to have in a three-game series.”
From puck drop, Cornell (15-10-6, 10-8-4 ECAC) mitigated Colgate’s strong transitional offense. The Red counteracted the Raiders’ speed by valuing puck possession, a metric Cornell dominated throughout the first period.
The opening frame passed quickly, thanks to a nearly 10-minute stretch without a whistle. Colgate (18-14-3, 13-7-2 ECAC) clawed back into the game during that span, overtaking the lead in shots over Cornell momentarily.
But the last six minutes were dominated by Cornell. The Red stifled Colgate and broke up Raider passes, turning that defense into offense.
“We’re just causing the other team to break down and we’re not [allowing] a lot of transition offense,” Castagna said.
The first goal of the game exhibited exactly that — Major gathered the puck at his own blueline and skated hard into the offensive zone, with a few Cornell skaters trailing behind him. Major’s excellent patience allowed him to find the stick of Penney, who collected the pass and fired the puck straight past Colgate netminder Andrew Takacs.
The 1-0 lead was the first lead Cornell had gotten on Colgate in its three games thus far against the Raiders — the Red never led in its 3-2 overtime win over Colgate on Dec. 6, coming back after being down 2-0 and finding the deciding goal in extra time.
Colgate began the second period with its strongest shift yet, but it was the Red that ultimately took hold of the momentum with an early power play.
Cornell held the puck in its offensive zone nearly the entire duration of Reid Irwin’s two-minute penalty, but the Red was reluctant to shoot the puck and continued to pass around the perimeter until time wound down.
“I thought we left a lot of things on the table on the power play,” Schafer said.
Though Cornell couldn’t convert on the man advantage, it would ultimately double its lead. A strong offensive shift led to a shot on net by sophomore defenseman Hoyt Stanley, and senior forward Jack O’Leary cleaned up the loose rebound atop Takacs’ crease to put the Red up 2-0.
“In the playoffs, it’s going to be greasy [goals], so you got to get guys going to the net,” O’Leary said. “That’s really what’s going to get us success [at] this time of year.”
A sprawled out Takacs remained down on the ice defeated as O’Leary skated to the Cornell bench, waving his hands in the air after finding the all-important next goal.
Cornell nearly escaped the period with its lead unscathed, but a late penalty taken by senior defenseman Hank Kempf gave the Raiders a power play with 1:58 left in the middle frame. The call earned some backlash from associate head coach Casey Jones ’90, who spoke with the linesman after an apparent missed icing call that preceded the penalty and would’ve taken the puck all the way back into the Colgate defensive zone.
Colgate halved the lead on the power play, when Brett Chorske’s shot was deflected past Shane by Alex DiPaolo just 15 seconds into the man advantage, sending Colgate into the second intermission within one goal of Cornell once again.
The third period began with another strong Colgate shift, eagerly vying for the tying goal.
But ultimately, the Raiders wouldn’t find it.
Castagna made it 3-1 Cornell with 12:01 to play when he buried a puck into a gaping net after Takacs overcommitted on the preceding shot by Penney. The tally was reviewed, but a quick decision was made and the goal stood.
“I don’t think it really gets much easier than that,” Castagna said with a laugh.
Things got a bit chippy when coinciding minor penalties after a scrum led to some four-on-four hockey, before Colgate was nabbed for slashing with 6:31 left to play. Cornell had some good looks, including a wide-open look by Bancroft that went wide, but the same score stood as the teams returned to even strength.
Down two, Colgate ultimately sealed its own fate when the team took a too-many-men penalty that sent the Raiders to the penalty kill for the final 2:11 of the game.
An empty-netter from senior forward Sullivan Mack iced the win for Cornell, which is now one win away from advancing to ECAC championship weekend in Lake Placid, New York.
“We’re trying to have a goldfish mentality here and just focus on tomorrow,” O’Leary said. “It’s a good feeling, [we] celebrated for a little bit, but [it’s] just on to the next.”
“All we’ve done so far is win the first three periods, and we start all over again [tomorrow],” Schafer said. “[We need to] follow the same game plan: stay disciplined, stay out of the box, stay on top of them. That’s the most important thing.”
The Red will take on the Raiders in game two of the ECAC quarterfinals tomorrow night in Hamilton. Puck drop is slated for 7 p.m. and all action can be streamed on ESPN+.
Jane McNally is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and was the sports editor on the 142nd editorial board. She is a member of the class of 2026 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. You can follow her on X @JaneMcNally_ and reach her at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.
