CORNELL'S STRONG FIRST PERIOD FLURRY LIFTS THE BIG RED TO 4-3 WIN AGAINST COLGATE IN HAMILTON

Game Boxscore

Hamilton, N.Y. -- The Cornell University men's ice hockey team scored three first period goals to propel the Big Red to a 4-3 win against Colgate in the finale of the ECAC home-and-home series Saturday evening.

Cornell netted all three goals via special teams with a shorthanded marker and two power-play goals in the first. The shorthanded goal came from David Francis at 2:38 when he touched in an attempted clear from Colgate goaltender Jason Lefevre which bounced off the net and right to Francis on the left of the goal. Then Stephen Baby scored his sixth goal on the power-play at 16:22 from Ryan Vesce. Mark McRae made it 3-0 at 18:55 with his sixth marker on the man-advantage from Vesce and Baby.

Colgate's Sean Nolan scored his first of two goals on the evening to cut the lead to 3-1 at 5:47 with his 17th of the season and 10th on the power-play from P.J. Yedon and Rob Brown.

Krzysztof Wieckowski scored the eventual game-winning goal at 7:49 of the second period from Baby and David Kozier to give Cornell a 4-1 advantage.

Nolan scored his 18th of the season to narrow the Cornell lead to 4-2 with just 45 seconds remaining in the second period. Colgate mounted a late rush with a goal by Scooter Smith from Yedon and Murphy at 19:14 with Lefevre pulled from the net. It was thought that Cornell had scored an empty-netter with one second left in the game, but the referees waived the goal off since coincidental minors to Wieckowski and Nolan had been whistled prior to the goal. So, this gave the Red Raiders one final chance to tie the contest with a face-off in the Cornell end, but couldn't fire a shot off before time expired.

Three stars: 1. Stephen Baby 2. Sean Nolan 3. Ryan Vesce
Referee:Alex Dell Asst Ref:Jeff Fulton; Jim White
Win-Matt Underhill (5-2-2). Loss-Jason Lefevre (5-10-4, 3-4-1 ECAC).