CANTON, N.Y. — Seven goals were scored, 11 players had points and eight players tallied multi-point nights. But one of the loudest cheers erupting from the Cornell bench on Saturday came when senior defenseman Jack O’Brien blocked a hard St. Lawrence shot on a late third-period penalty kill.
“You get that sense when you see that on the bench,” said head coach Casey Jones ’90. “It's a big thing for him to do, especially with the score, right? I think that's why it's so meaningful.”
The score was handily in Cornell’s favor. But that didn’t matter.
“I’m fine,” O’Brien, sporting a dark bruise on his arm and a wide smile, said. “It’s my best friend in net, so I owed him a couple. Felt good.”
No. 17 men’s hockey scored a touchdown on St. Lawrence on Saturday night, salvaging a split in North Country and capping the first half of the season with a 7-2 win. The Red saw contributions from seven different goal-scorers in the win. No player reached the three-point mark, but eight skaters would tally two points, a flex of Cornell’s depth.
“I thought our first period tonight might have been our best period of the year,” Jones said. “I thought we were resilient tonight, where we didn't stay the course last night. … Real good response.”
Senior goaltender Remington Keopple got his first start since the season-opener on Oct. 31, making 18 saves on 20 shots. Keopple’s start ended a nine-game streak of freshman goaltender Alexis Cournoyer starts after he allowed four goals in the loss to Clarkson on Friday.
After getting an early goal scrubbed from the scoreboard on Friday night, the Red’s first goal on Saturday would count, as senior forward Nick DeSantis would cash in a nifty backhander to open the scoring just over six minutes into the game.
It was a Cornell offensive onslaught in the first period, peppering Saints netminder Collin Winn left and right ultimately leading in shots, 12-2, and chances, 28-7, after 20 minutes.
Cornell wouldn’t head to its locker room without adding to the lead — an outstanding individual effort by junior forward Tyler Catalano saw him intercept a St. Lawrence breakout pass and take it with speed into the offensive zone, ultimately ripping a shot that beat Winn glove side to make it 2-0 with 2:17 left.
Catalano’s tally capped off one of the Red’s best periods all year, one that was also disciplined after a penalty-ridden affair on Friday night that proved costly for Cornell.
But the second period would write a different story — four goals were scored and five penalties were taken between the two teams, with the Red accounting for eight of the 10 penalty minutes. Jones expressed frustration at times with the officiating over the weekend, as Cornell was whistled for 15 minor penalties across both games.
“It was off this weekend, and I thought that game almost got away from us [because of it],” Jones said.
It took two penalties in the second period for the Saints to tie things up — first, a toe-drag and quick release by Tyler Cristall beat Keopple on just the fourth shot he saw, and then Rasmus Svartstrom tapped the puck in from the backdoor to make it 2-2 8:53 into the middle frame.
With play leveled, Cornell desperately searched for an answer. A Saints penalty just over a minute after the game-tying goal awarded the Red with a chance to respond.
That it would do — crisp passing on the power play culminated in a shot by sophomore forward Charlie Major that would sail past Winn to make it 3-2, an apt result for Major, who had garnered a handful of impressive scoring opportunities that yielded no result in the first.
Another scare came for Cornell when St. Lawrence thought it evened the game up once again, but a successful coach’s challenge by Cornell scrubbed the goal off the board and preserved the 3-2 lead. The reversed call seemed to suck the wind out of the Saints’ sails — the second period was St. Lawrence’s best, but it would not have much to show for it as Cornell’s offense kept coming.
“We got a little stagnant in the second,” O’Brien said. “But this is all about overcoming adversity, and I think we showed that.”
Cornell would at last restore its two-goal lead when junior forward Jonathan Castagna loaded up and released a lethal wrist shot that beat Winn cleanly with just 2:19 left in the period.
It wasn’t perfect, but the Red cushioned its lead in the third period and found its scoring touch. After taking a late contact to the head penalty in the second period (which Cornell would kill off to start the third), freshman forward Caton Ryan got his redemption by netting a beautiful wrist shot to make it a 5-2 game just 2:34 into the final frame.
Less than three minutes after Ryan’s goal, freshman forward Chase Pirtle got in on the fun and potted his first collegiate goal on a hard shot that ricocheted off of Winn’s mask and into the net, making it 6-2. And to ice the game, junior forward Jake Kraft made it a touchdown when he finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play just past the halfway point of the third.
“That's what we need more of,” O’Brien said. “We need some more depth scoring, some power-play goals, too. Scoring was coming from everyone, so that’s really good.”
That would conclude the scoring, with a late penalty kill — including O’Brien’s diving block — sealing the victory for the Red.
“It's fun,” O’Brien said. “We probably didn't start out the way we wanted to, but when one of the guys takes a penalty, like it's our job to have his back. I think we take a lot of pride in it.”
The North Country road trip concludes the first half of the season, as the Red now heads into a 27-day break for the holidays. Cornell will resume the 2025-2026 season on Jan. 2, 2026 when it takes on the University of Nebraska-Omaha for the first of two games at Lynah Rink. Puck drop is slated for 7 p.m.
“We didn't want to go in[to the break] with that sour taste in our mouth, because [of] last night,” Jones said. “I thought we responded and showed the character we needed to show.”
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.
