ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell goaltender Mitch Gillam and his defense stood tall on Friday night at Lynah Rink and the Big Red came away with a narrow 2-1 win over St. Lawrence.
A third-period penalty shot and a late barrage were part of Gillam’s workload on the evening, with 26 stops titled to his name when the dust had settled. The likes of which gave him his seventh win on the season, with him going down as the goaltender of record for his team’s first 10 games.
Gillam and Cornell were staked to an early lead when Trevor Yates sprung Teemu Tiitinen through the neutral zone. Yates worked a puck along the wall near the red line, which is where Tiitinen picked up the loose biscuit. He used his speed to get by a defender and then flipped a shot past Saints’ goalie Kyle Hayton to get Cornell on the board first for their third consecutive game.
“This team isn’t really worried about the first goal, rather they worry about the full 60 minutes and playing well,” said Cornell coach Mike Schafer. “You want to come out and follow your game plan from start to finish.”
That consistency became tough to maintain for an eighteen-minute stretch of time, when the Saints dominated the faceoff dot and did not lose a draw from early in the first period, which carried over into the second frame.
“When you lose faceoffs, you lose possession and you have to work to get it back and that kind of hurt us a little bit with our faceoff guys,” said Schafer. “Not just them, but guys on the perimeter not winning battles to get those loose pucks.”
After the harsh disparity at the faceoff circle, the Big Red extended their advantage on a major league shot from Jake Weidner late in the second. After Matt Buckles fed Weidner as he came through the neutral zone, Weidner waited for options, then opted to fire on net from the top of the right faceoff dot. His shot eluded the blocker side of Hayton, then nailed the post and went in.
Sophomore defenseman Dan Wedman notched his first collegiate point with a secondary assist; he had played in 38 career games prior.
The score remained 2-0 to Cornell after 40 minutes of play, but a quick surge put the Saints right back into the contest early on in the third stanza.
After a clean faceoff win, the Saints maintained possession in their attacking end. Woody Hudson and Gavin Bayreuther played pass along the blue line before Bayreuther found space and launched a wrist shot towards Gillam. With a mass of bodies in front of him, Gillam had a hard time with vision and could not locate the puck, and it sailed past his glove side to get the Saints on the board.
St. Lawrence opened up their bid to complete the comeback after that, which included a penalty shot chance midway through the period, when a Hudson follow up shot came loose in the crease, then a Cornell defenseman covered the puck, which warranted the penalty shot call.
Ryan Lough took the penalty shot for the Saints and drew Gillam to the goalie’s right, then flipped a forehanded shot towards goal. Gillam made the stop, but he lost sight of the puck after that, which almost proved fatal, as the puck came to a stop just over a foot before it crossed the line.
The stop was arguably Gillam’s best on the evening, but Saints’ coach Greg Carvel said that it isn’t always about the guy at the back.
“It doesn’t matter who the goalie is,” Carvel said. “We just try to get good scoring chances.”
Those chances continued to come in the closing minutes, but Gillam and his defense, which finished with 13 blocked shots, kept the door closed.
Carvel was not discouraged with his team’s effort, which came out to be just their second conference loss on the season.
“I thought it was a game that could have gone either way,” said Carvel. “We had a good effort on the road, but we just couldn’t find a way to score.”
