Third Period Lifts Saints

The St. Lawrence Saints registered a 5-3 victory over the Quinnipiac University Bobcats in game 1 of the ECAC Hockey quarterfinal round at Appleton Arena Friday night.

The game-winning goal came when Mark Armstrong was sprung for a breakaway with a pass from Shawn Fensel. He controlled the puck and beat Quinnipiac’s Bud Fisher under the blocker from between the circles at the 12:47 mark of the third, for his sixth goal of the season

“The fourth goal, you just can’t give up a breakaway like that,” said Quinnipiac Head Coach Rand Pecknold. “Our kid was sleeping and they got a guy behind us.”

The Saints scored three goals in the period to secure a 1-0 lead in the series.

“I thought St. Lawrence was the better team tonight,” said Pecknold. “They outworked us and made plays when they needed to make plays. We had some severe defensive letdowns on probably all five goals.”

Late in the period Quinnipiac was granted a five minute power play when Brock McBride was called for boarding with 3:42 left in the game. On the power play Quinnipiac pulled their goalie for a two-man advantage, but was only able to muster one shot on net.

The Bobcats had come back from deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 to tie the game at three a piece.

The first line of the Saints, McBride, Kevin DeVirgilio and Mike McKenzie, each contributed a goal, scoring the first three of the five total.

The Saints opened the scoring at the 9:43 mark when McBride deflected home the puck in front of the crease. McKenzie threw the puck on net from the left circle and McBride tipped the puck through the five-hole.

McKenzie extended the lead for St. Lawrence (20-11-4) went he sent a saucer pass from his knee out of the defensive zone to spring DeVergilio on a one on opportunity. Fisher made the first save, but McBride picked up the rebound and fed the puck across the crease to McKenzie for the open the goal.

The Bobcats Dan Henningson cut the deficit in half with a goal from the slot. Bryan Leitch carried the puck into the zone and skated behind the net. He fed Henningson in the where he beat Petizian over the shoulder just 1:02 into the period.

The Bobcats tied the game at two a piece when Mike Atkinson shot the puck and deflected off of a Saints’ defenseman’s shoulder and trickled over the goal line. Petizian caught it in his glove, but it was ruled a goal. He appealed to referee that he made the save, but the goal stood with 2:11 remaining.

The Saints took retook the lead when DeVirgilio scored at the 1:30 mark of the third when he found the puck on the blade of his stick and roofed the puck off the crossbar past Fisher. He controlled the pass from the side boards when McKenzie fed him the puck and stood alone in front of the net for the tally marker.

Mark Nelson tied the game at three with his first career goal in his 136th career game, on the penalty kill when he received a pass from Atkinson and beat Petizian through the five-hole.

Zach Miskovic blasted a shot off of a blocked shot through traffic to extend the lead to two goals that beat Fisher, again on the blocker side, the 13th goal for the defenseman on the season for the two-goal advantage.

The Saints finished 1-for-2 on the power play while the Bobcats went 0-for-5.

Petizian finished with 20 saves in the winning effort to improve to 16-8-4, while Fisher stopped 33 in the loss dropping his effort to 7-8-1.