OXFORD, Ohio — Halloween is just a week away, but No. 10 Miami felt a little more tricked than treated tonight.
Despite outshooting St. Lawrence 42-16, the Saints stunned the home team in a barn-burning, 5-4 victory after jumping to a 4-0 lead before the game’s halfway mark.
Early and often was the theme for the Saints.
Christian Horn lit the fire on the man-advantage just 1:53 into the game when he wired a shot past the glove of RedHawks’ goaltender Jay Williams. The scoring chances were there for both teams in the following minutes, but it was once again the Saints that tickled twine.
Justin Bruckel was credited with the second tally.
A pile-up in Miami’s net opened up some room for Mike Graham to bury his second strike of the year and despite protest from the plaintiff, Williams, the officials ruled that no goaltender interference took place. That brought the total to 3-0 as the first period drew to a close.
The second 20-minute session was more of the same defensively from Miami as Ryan Lough buried the fourth SLU biscuit of the night just under five minutes into the frame.
The RedHawks responded a few minutes later on a Blake Coleman shorthanded strike, but it was answered a mere 10 seconds later by Eric Sweetman at 10:14 of the second period. At that point in the game, the Saints had converted 45 percent (5 out of 11) of their total shots on goal.
Not content with turtling the last half of the contest, the RedHawks battled through adversity and netted three unanswered tallies by Ben Paulides, Coleman (again) and Anthony Louis, respectively. The first two came on the power play, and Coleman and Louis’ scores were but 14 seconds apart. Even with such an offensive barrage and seven minutes left in the game, the oft-overlooked Saints locked it down and survived a Miami extra-man attack in the final 60 seconds.
“We lost some All-American-calliber players last year,” St. Lawrence coach Greg Carvel said. “We tried to play with a lot of speed and I thought maybe tonight, Miami wasn’t ready. We scored some goals early, we lost our flow, and then they scored some. I was real proud of our team for being able to reset.”
The loss drops Miami to 3-2 on the year, while St. Lawrence improves to those same numbers. Four of St. Lawrence’s five goals were firsts of the year for the players that registered them, including Sweetman’s game-winner.
“That was huge,” Carvel said. “Unlike my first two years here, we don’t have a guy that’s going to score 30 goals. We’re going to have to win by committee. I’ve got four lines that are pretty even and I trust them all.”
Though the crowd was content with the RedHawks’ late-game heroics, coach Enrico Blasi had other thoughts on his team’s performance.
“Plain and simple, we got outplayed,” Blasi explained. “We had a little push there at the end, but that’s just not good enough. Our mindset wasn’t where it needed to be right off of the bat, and give them credit. They played hard and executed when they had to, and that’s the ball game.”
Backstopped by Kyle Hayton’s 38-save effort, the Saints now have the momentum heading into Saturday night’s game. Round two between Saint Lawrence and Miami commences at 7 p.m. EDT at the Goggin Ice Center.
“I’m very proud of the guys,” Carvel said. “That’s a really good hockey team with a lot of high end skill. We’ll have our hands full tomorrow with an angry team, but if we play like we did in the first [period tonight], I like our chances.”
