Asleep at the Helm: Lakers Lose to Geneseo 4-2

The Ice Knights came into the Campus Center Ice Arena Saturday night after being dealt a tie to Cortland State. On the other hand the Lakers routed Brockport 11-3. Perhaps the offense used up all of its firepower, because it was not seen again tonight. The Ice Knights played a suffocating defense smothering the Lakers offensive attack. In net for the Lakers was senior Chris Hyk, and things couldn't have got off to a rockier start. Dan Brown scored on a wrap around just 22 seconds into the contest giving the Ice Knights the quick 1-0 lead. The Ice Knights were swarming to the puck the entire night, and were clearly knocking the Lakers out of their game.

Laker Eric Selleck scored his 8th goal of the season to knot it up at 6:37 in the first. The Lakers would then surrender another goal at 13:39 by Michael Forgione who beat Hyk who tried to make a sprawling save. It was clear that the Lakers came out flat in the first, and the Laker defense was asleep allowing the Ice Knights to gain the advantage.

At the start of the second period coach Ed Gosek made the switch in net going to the freshman Paul Beckwith. The freshman came into the game riding a four game winning streak. But, the switch may have come to late. The Ice Knights for a majority of the second period dumped the puck into their offensive zone and chased it down. This effectively throw the Lakers out of the game, and helped kill the clock.

In the third period Laker defenseman Rich Zalewksi was hit with a interference penalty at 3:38. Ice Knight Clint Olson would capitalize on this advantage at 5:44 netting a powerplay goal pushing Geneseo out to a 3-1 lead. The Lakers offense was completely thrown off by the Ice Knights defense and didn't allow many pucks to get past them and on net. But, there was a ray of hope at 16:49 when Tyler Lyon rocketed a blue line shot past Geneseo's Cory Gershon to make it 3-2. The Lakers looked to feed of the energy of the arena after the goal, and they did. Brendan McLaughlin had the best opportunity at 19:24 when he was left all alone in the farside circle, but missed on a open point blank shot. The Lakers made a mad dash to the finish, and showed a lot of heart in the last 2 minutes. But, it came a little too late as the Ice Knights put in an empty netter with 2 seconds left to end the game.

Jared Crast