By Rob Ciambra, QBSN Staff Writer
After a first-round sweep of Princeton, the Cornell Big Red continued its success with a 3-2 first game win against the No. 1 Bobcats at the TD Bank Sports Center for game one of the ECAC quarterfinals.
The physicality began immediately. Less than 10 seconds in, Kellen Jones was hit into the Cornell team bench, but he would quickly answer back with a hit along the far sideboards of his own. The Bobcats dominated for the majority of the period and were able to capitalize on their first power play.
Connor Jones had the puck in the corner to the left of Cornell goaltender Andy Iles and stepped out towards the front of the net, throwing the puck at a Cornell defender. The puck went off the Big Red player’s leg and past an unaware Iles.
The Big Red picked up their physical game after the goal, throwing her bodies around left and right.
A Cornell power play carried over into the beginning of the second period, and the Big Red took advantage of it. Twenty-three seconds into the period, Brian Ferlin shot the puck past a shocked Eric Hartzell, trying the game was tied at one.
The Bobcats were not the same hard hitting, dominating team as they appeared in the first period, despite answering back with a goal by Kellen Jones about three minutes after the Big Red tied the game.
But the lead wouldn’t last, as the Big Red came back again. Madison Dias shot a one-timer that beat Hartzell off of the crossbar and in to tie the game back up.
The game settled down until Clay Harvey took a delay of game penalty. Cornell went right back to work, and dominated and pushed the Bobcats until Ferlin scored his second goal of the game, stuffing the puck in past Hartzell with a scrum in front of the net.
The third period saw another Bobcat team, this one playing very aggressively and with more urgency. The Bobcats did everything they could to get shots on goal, but the Big Red netminder Isles came up big for his team, making save after save after save. The Bobcats outshot Cornell in the third period 15-4 (35-20 the final total for the game), and Isles stopped them all to give his team the 1-0 series lead.
Pecknold said after the game that Langlois “was excellent tonight, and he had six or seven grade A scoring opportunities. But he just could not find a way to put the puck in the net.”
“To me, we lost this game tonight because of Andy Isles…He was the best player on the ice…and secondly we just had some bad puck luck both offensively and defensively,” said Pecknold.
History is on the Bobcats’ side though. They are 3-1 when trailing 1-0 in the quarterfinals. The second game of the series is set for tomorrow at 7 p.m., at the TD Bank Sports Center.
