ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell jumped out to an early lead and cruised to a 5-1 win over Colgate on Friday night at Lynah Rink.
The Big Red followed a similar trend from their last contest, where they jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead against Quinnipiac, but they learned from their mistakes this time around against the Raiders.
Cornell forward Christian Hilbrich jumped on a turned over puck at his attacking blue line when a Raider defenseman could not coral a loose puck in his skates. Hilbrich took control of the situation and came in alone on a break and beat Colgate starting goalie Charlie Finn to open the scoring just over a minute into the game.
The Big Red attack pressed on just over a minute later when Trevor Yates tipped home a Reece Willcox wrist shot into the upper half of the net.
“We had a really slow start,” said Colgate coach Don Vaughan. “Two fast strikes, especially in this building, really sets you back on your heels.”
Vaughan’s gang slowed the Cornell momentum near the midway point of the opening frame when their power play struck. Mike Borkowski got the marker on a blast past Cornell goalie Mitch Gillam that was set up by a clean faceoff win by Tylor Spink. Brett Corkey got the puck after the faceoff win, who got the primary assist on the goal.
“We had our moments [and] I thought our power play looked really good,” said Vaughan.
Unfortunately for Colgate, the Raiders did not get a chance to build on that momentum.
Perhaps one of the two biggest turning points in the game came when Mitch Vanderlaan netted his third goal of the season after Trevor Yates set him up with a tip pass at the Colgate blue line. The energy created off of the goal was too much for the Raiders to overcome.
“I thought we played a solid 60 minutes,” Cornell coach Mike Schafer said. “It was huge for us to go up 3-1 heading into the second period.”
That second period had the potential to go either way, but a Patrick McCarron goal to extend the lead to three all but put the hammer down, although the Raiders did get a chance to claw back.
The second turning point came with four and a half minutes to play in the second period, when Borkowski fired a shot on the power play that clanked iron twice and then came out. Officials went to video review, but the call on the ice was confirmed.
Vaughan thought that a goal there had the potential to fire up his team: “If Borkowski buries that on the power play instead of hitting both posts, maybe we get a little momentum.”
After Cornell blew a three-goal lead to Quinnipiac last week, the scare from Borkowski led to a Big Red clamp down on defense for the remainder of the evening.
“The difference between last Saturday [against Quinnipiac] and tonight was some huge blocked shots by our penalty killers,” said Schafer. “Dan Wedman and other guys did a great job of blocking it and we talked a lot about that and they came out and executed.”
Matt Buckles scored a couple minutes after the video review to seal the deal, which led to Finn being pulled in favor of Bruce Racine at the beginning of the third period. It was Racine’s first collegiate appearance in net.
Both teams will shuffle over to Hamilton Saturday evening to complete the home-and-home series, which was not lost on Schafer: “It was a solid win, but now we get ready for the 120 minutes of the battle. We’ll head up to Hamilton tomorrow and try to finish the series.”
