After netting his first four collegiate goals in his first five collegiate games, freshman forward Gio DiGiulian went on to score just once in his next 14 appearances.
That is, until he ventured east to Yale and Brown.
After lighting the lamp against Yale on Friday, DiGiulian tacked on two more scores on Saturday as Cornell cruised to a 4-2 victory over Brown in Providence, Rhode Island. The late-afternoon outing was yet another display of the newly assembled first line’s dominance.
“I thought it took us a little bit to work ourselves into the game, but overall, I thought it was a good weekend of hockey for us,” said head coach Casey Jones ’90.
Jones reimagined the top line — junior forward Ryan Walsh flanked by junior forward Jake Kraft and DiGiulian — last Friday against Dartmouth, citing a need for “something fresh.”
The change has quickly become one of Jones’ most effective — Cornell has scored 11 goals at even strength since then, and the first line has been responsible for five of them. In the last three games, Walsh, Kraft and DiGiulian have combined for 11 points.
“I do know that 18 [DiGiulian] and 10 [Kraft] on the outside [are] playing with good pace for [Walsh],” Jones said. “They're getting into the dirty areas. So it's been a good line, and we’re actually matching them up against other teams’ best players.”
Saturday’s game was not perfect — Brown outshot Cornell 13-4 in the final frame and clawed back to cut a three-goal deficit to two with the goaltender pulled, but the Red held on to secure six vital ECAC points.
And although he allowed four goals, Brown goaltender Tyler Shea still made 29 stops, with 26 of them coming in the first two periods. Without him, the score could have been much uglier.
On the other end, freshman goaltender Alexis Cournoyer was tested much less frequently but secured the victory with 27 stops, though not before allowing a goal on the first shot he faced.
Cornell (16-5-0, 11-3-0 ECAC) had been reeling from an unsuccessful man advantage in the early moments of the game, turning the puck over to the Bears in the neutral zone before Ben Poitras took care of the rest. His shot snuck under the blocker of Cournoyer to give the Bears a 1-0 lead at 4:54 of the first period, marking the 13th time in 17 appearances that Cournoyer has surrendered a first-period goal.
A brief Brown (4-17-1, 3-10-1 ECAC) attack followed the goal up, but the Red soon regained its footing, and the game was tied just 1:48 after the Bears’ opening tally. Freshman forward Aiden Long picked up speed with the puck along the left wing, and his glove-side shot hit nothing but net, equalizing the game at 1-1.
A successful kill to open the middle frame seemed to provide Brown with a jolt of momentum, as Cornell — a bit depleted due to sophomore defenseman Michael Fisher and junior forward Luke Devlin not being in the lineup due to injuries on Saturday — allowed the Bears a few too many odd-man rushes for comfort.
Jones said he “hopes” that the injuries to Devlin and Fisher are day-to-day.
“We'll track to see where things are at,” Jones said. “But hopefully nothing that's too long.”
It was not until around the 11-minute mark of the second stanza that the Red began generating some momentum. An elongated shift in its offensive zone yielded some grade-A opportunities, but Shea did an excellent job collapsing on the puck to limit second chances.
That is, until a couple of pokes by DiGiulian culminated in the puck just barely eking through Shea’s pads. Shea — having already made 22 saves up to that point — displayed dejected body language as Cornell celebrated its first lead at about the halfway point of the game.
Brown earned a power play with 5:30 to go in the period, but some timely blocks by the Cornell penalty killers preserved the slim lead.
And, with just 10 seconds left in the second period, DiGiulian tacked on his second goal of the game to make it a 3-1 game.
“He made some really good plays with that line,” Jones said. “And so I think there's some chemistry there. I'm excited about him taking a step with that.”
The goal seemed to suck the wind out of Brown’s sails — particularly those of Shea, who attempted a diving save as DiGiulian shot for the gaping net, and did not make enough contact with the puck to keep it out of his net.
The third period allotted Cornell its third power play of the night, which soon became its first — and only — successful man-advantage on Saturday. Freshman defenseman Xavier Veilleux lasered a shot past Shea just 28 seconds into the power play to give Cornell a 4-1 lead.
“That was a big power-play goal … we needed one there,” Jones said. “To get one and kind of put the game away [and] seal it there was important for us tonight.”
The Bears gave the Red a scare when they scored an extra-attacker goal with 4:07 left. Brown had its goaltender pulled for nearly five minutes, but Cornell failed to find the back of the vacant net, largely due to the blocks of the Bear skaters and a couple of fortuitous hit posts.
“[In the] last part of the game, they had the goalie pulled quite a bit. We've got to get a little better at that,” Jones said. “Gotta work on managing that. We had, like, eight shots at the empty net. … They had some zone time, but I thought we did a good job.”
Cornell held on to secure the 4-2 victory, the weekend sweep and the series sweep of both Brown and Yale. The six points claimed this weekend not only bolster the Red in its quest for a top-four seed in the ECAC playoffs, but also put the Red in the driver’s seat for an Ivy League title.
Next up, Cornell will take on Colgate in a home-and-home sequence next weekend. The Red will head to Hamilton, New York, for a 7:30 p.m. tilt with the Raiders on Friday before returning to Lynah Rink at 7 p.m. on Saturday puck drop. All action will stream live 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.
