Brockport falls after surrendering late game lead
- jcamp214
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
By: Joey Campbell
The (1-5) SUNY Brockport Golden Eagles Men's Ice Hockey team faced a familiar foe in the #15 Chatham Cougars who find themselves at (6-0), atop the United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) standings. Brockport held a 4-2 lead late in the third, but the Cougars came back and won it in overtime 5-4, spoiling Brockports annual Teddy Bear Toss night
.
"I thought we battled real hard," Brockport Head Coach Brian Dickinson said. "We just got a little loose. When you're trying to build something like we are, there's so many young guys , you got to learn how to win."
In net for the Golden Eagles was sophomore Dax Easter. Easter is coming off back-to-back losses which saw him make 40 saves in each game. Despite an 0-3 record, Easter posts a .922 save percentage and allowing a team best 3.05 goals per game. Starting for Chatham for a change is freshman Nikolas Trakakis, despite Cameron Kuntar being among the best goalies in Division III. Trakakis has made one start this year which saw him give up 1 goal while making 32 saves.
For the Cougars, Michael Roby had a hat trick scoring his third in overtime to give the Cougars the win. Nick Cyprian had 2 goals as well. Three players each had two assists for the Cougars coming from Caden Pendo, Nicholas Babbie, and Jake LaRusso. Goaltender Trakakis made 36 saves on 40 shots allowed. The goal scorers from Brockport came from Manny Sanchez, Kyle Kussman, Schuyler Flansburg, and Brody Seitz. The assists came off of Nick Reif, Jacob Gates, and Michael Kull who all had one assist.
Kussman got the teddy bears out of the stands early twelve minutes in. Off of a cross ice pass from Kull and walked it down the right circle. A snapshot got the Golden Eagles on the board giving Kussman his first career goal, and ensued a rain of bears on the ice.
The joy lasted exactly 49 seconds before the Cougars tied it up. LaRusso fired a shot on Easter that deflected high in front of the net, Cyprian batted the puck out of the air and silenced the crowed tying it up at 1.
Both teams would be held scoreless for the second period, keeping it tied entering the third.
Roby got the scoring drought to end early in the third period. A feed from behind the net of Easter from Babbie gave Roby an easy putback goal, giving the Cougars their first lead.
Brockport got the energy right back on the powerplay. Reif sent a one-timer that Trakakis deflected wide. Seitz was able to clean up the rebound in front, giving him his first collegiate goal and to tie the game at 2-2.
Four minutes later, Brockport scored again. A netfront battle ensued where Trakakis was in a dangerous position out in front. Flansburg got his stick under, and the puck slowly rolled in for added dramatic effect. Wegmans Ice Arena was buzzing, and Brockport led the undefeated Cougars 3-2.
35 seconds later is when the stadium almost came crashing down. Gates took the puck up center ice and went one against three Cougars defenseman. Somehow he was able to feed it to Sanchez with a nasty one-timer to give Brockport an unfathomable two goal lead with 8 minutes left.
Connor McAleer took a penalty with 4 minutes remaining in the game. Chatham was 0-3 on the power-play, but Cyprian wouldn't be denied as he one-timed a feed from LaRusso to cut the deficit to one.
The air was sucked out of the arena with 40 seconds left. Chatham pulled their goalie and went six on five. Pendo wrapped the puck around the net and fed Roby right in front to put it in easily. Game was tied with 40 seconds left. The game would need more than 60 minutes to find a winner.
Roby ended the night for both teams. Cougars had a transition 2 on 1 where Babbie fed Roby who went bar down to end the night.
"Much needed point for us to at least... you know, kind of proved to these guys that we can play with anybody," Dickinson said. "Looking forward to another big effort tomorrow."
The Golden Eagles fall to (1-6) and have dropped their fifth straight game. As for Chatham, their undefeated record stays clean at (7-0) as they stay alone at the top of the conference. Both teams will rematch tomorrow at Wegmans Ice Arena at 3 p.m.