Dartmouth, Princeton Advance to Lake Placid, While Cornell Earns a Game 3
by Joshua Seguin/Staff Writer (@JoshSeguin1)
Despite sometimes erratic stretches, Clarkson showed the ability to defeat top teams at times throughout the season — Penn State, North Dakota and Cornell. But this weekend, it turned in its finest hour against Quinnipiac.
Friday’s win, a dominant effort, was quite something in and of itself. But the Golden Knights went one better Saturday, pulling off an improbable comeback, and improbable sweep of top-seeded Quinnipiac.
“The team has taken all the lessons learned throughout the season,” Clarkson coach J.F. Houle said. “A lot can be said about fighting through adversity and then getting better. We have done a really good job using those lessons we have learned.”
To say it all looked unlikely is actually an understatement. With about eight minutes left, trailing 3-1, Mael St. Denis went to the box for holding to put the Bobcats on the power play. But Quinnipiac soon unraveled.
Shawn O’Donnell took advantage of a bad turnover and scored on a shorthanded breakaway to make it 3-2 with 7:40 to go. Thirty-eight seconds later, freshman defender Matthew Mayich got the equalizer, when he was the beneficiary of an Erik Bargholtz pass to the slot on a break to tie it.
“Obviously, it all happened really fast,” said Houle of the sequence of events. “We scored a quick shorty to get it within a goal and another right after to tie the game. So with the tight game, it was all up to whoever scored the fourth goal tonight. Quinnipiac was kind of stunned a little bit and could never recover from it.”
Less than a minute and a half later, Bargholtz completed the comeback, scoring with 5:39 left on a beautiful individual play from the slot to make it 4-3. Clarkson held on through a furious Quinnipiac charge and will play second-seeded Dartmouth on Friday at Lake Placid in the ECAC semis.
“(Bargholtz) is a senior for us, a great teammate and a really important role player for us,” Houle said. “Role players are always the most important players in the postseason. We are super excited for him and also for (O’Donnell) as well, another role player. Those guys and everyone in our lineup came up big for us.”
Clarkson is 7-1-0 in its last nine games.
“We have been playing really well for the past 5-6 games,” said Houle. “We are a very young team and for us to make it to Lake Placid is great for the program. It is great for all the young guys to go through all this adversity so that you can have a chance at a championship. Any team can win at this level if you put in the right effort. It’s always nice to play in Lake Placid.”
Quinnipiac has been in this situation before, though usually it falls short only after reaching Lake Placid. Despite having six regular-season titles in a row, the Bobcats have not won the Whitelaw Cup in that timeframe. It is nevertheless safe for the NCAAs, and will be a probable 3 seed.
The good news is, the Bobcats usually wake back up come NCAA Tournament time. That fact was not enough to solace their head coach, however.
“It’s ridiculous, it really is. I don’t wanna use the term embarrassing, ridiculous is the better word,” QU coach Rand Pecknold said to the Quinnipiac Chronicle.
“We basically had the game won,” Pecknold said. “We are a really good defensive hockey team, or have been in the past. We just made some immature decisions, lacked details and lacked buy-in.”
As for what to do going forward:
“I have no clue,” Pecknold said to The Chronicle. “I’ll have a clue eventually. Right now it’s just trying to process the craziest loss, one of the worst losses we’ve ever had. We’ll deal with that later. I assumed we were playing tomorrow.”
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Dartmouth went 14-1-2 at home in the postseason and were an undefeated 12-0-2 in conference play. That home-ice advantage continued this weekend against Colgate when the Big Green finished off the sweep of the Raiders, winning 5-2.
“I am extremely proud of our group because ending another team’s season is really hard to do,” Dartmouth coach Reid Cashman said. “We battled through a lot of penalties, a lot of emotion and our guys stuck together. It was extremely gratifying as a coach.”
Dartmouth will return to Lake Placid for a third straight season and has all but locked up an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time in 46 years. The Big Green will also look to take home their first league tournament title in Lake Placid, a feat that seems remarkable considering it was a founding member of the league in the 1960s.
Cashman has his team looking like the favorite heading to Lake Placid. Jack Silverberg scored to make it 1-0 late in the first period and Freshman Nathan Morin scored in the second to make it 2-0.
“(Morin) has been a little banged up but he has come back,” said Cashman. “He is such a huge part of team, so that was great. He had some chances in the first period and he was a little frustrated. Nikita (Nikora) being on the the back post opened him up to have that chance, which I thought was great.”
Colgate largely kept the nation’s goal-scoring leader Hayden Stavroff quiet. Stavroff, who has 28 goals on the season, took two penalties in the first period, but Dartmouth killed both off. Simon Labelle got it to 2-1 in the second, after a weird bounce off the back-wall.
“This was a hard fought series,” Colgate coach Mike Harder said. “(Dartmouth) did a really good job and when we did get them through, their goalie made the saves. The playoffs are just really hard to win games.”
Dartmouth scored three in the third to pull away. A bigger concern for Cashman is that Stavroff went down midway through the third period, after being checked from behind. He never returned to the bench and Cashman had little comment but seemed upbeat on his status going forward.
“We don’t sweep this series without scoring three power-play goals,” said Cashman. “That group had a different look in their eyes this weekend. The special teams were working really good.”
Colgate finished its season 13-20-5. After a pair of fourth place finishes in Mike Harder’s first two seasons, the Raiders had an up and down campaign this year.
“We built in a really hard schedule this year to hopefully prepare us for the postseason,” said Harder. “I just think we ran into a really good Dartmouth team. I think we are in a good spot heading forward.”
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Considering how well Union has been playing lately, Princeton needed to come with its A-game this weekend. After a Friday night win at the famed Hobey Baker Rink, the Tigers were on the brink of their first ECAC final four since it won the Whitelaw Cup in 2018.
Kai Daniells began the year hot for Princeton and led his team to a strong first half, but he had cooled off of late. On Saturday night, however, he proved just how big he is for his team. Daniells scored a hat trick, including the go-ahead goal in the third period, to give the Tigers a 5-2 win over the Garnet Chargers.
Regardless of what happens, the Tigers will face the winner of Cornell/Harvard.
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After a lackluster effort Friday night that saw Harvard win 3-1 at Lynah Rink, Cornell made quick work of its rival on Saturday, and went on to a 4-0 win. It got a pair of first-period goals, from Nick Desantis and Jake Kraft, to take an early lead.
“This game was a good version of ourselves,” Cornell coach Casey Jones said. “I thought it was a pretty complete game for us and a good response by our guys. I thought the first goal was huge for us and I thought we moved pucks fast.”
The Big Red got into their heavy style early and often, outshooting the Crimson, 12-5, in the first period. Kraft scored again in the second, making it 3-0.
“You never want to play from behind in a win or go home game,” Jones said. “We had good jump from the start and a good energy to our game.”
Cornell will host the Crimson on Sunday at 4 p.m. for the deciding game in the series. Cornell is relatively safe in the NCAAs, but a win Sunday would seal it, while a loss might force the Big Red to sweat a little.
“Both teams are on the same schedule, so we just have to rebound physically,” said Jones. “We just need to get this one out of our system, move on to tomorrow and get the juices flowing for that one. It shouldn’t be hard, it is Harvard on the other side.”