On Saturday evening, the Quinnipiac Bobcats defeated the Brown Bears 4-0 in a game that saw Quinnipiac celebrate their six departing seniors.
“It’s been awesome coming here, and everyone embraces, the new guys really well,” said senior forward Jack Ricketts.
Following the night’s theme, Ricketts opened the scoring in this one midway through the first on the power play. Chris Pelosi found a wide-open Ricketts on a mini two-on-one down low and Ricketts buried it into an open goal.
In the dying seconds of the period, Quinnipiac first-year goalie Dylan Silverstein made a sprawling save to rob Tanner Hartman of tying the game up heading into period two.
The physical play picked up in the second period as with just under three minutes remaining in the period, Quinnipiac’s junior forward Anthony Cipollone received a five-minute major penalty following a review for his role in a post-whistle scrum.
Following just one goal scored in the first forty minutes, the Bobcats came out firing in the third and scored two in the first five minutes of the final period.
First, graduate captain Travis Treloar had a loose puck find his stick and he calmly roofed it into the back of the net to extend the lead to 2-0.
Then just 63 seconds later, the young guys got into the action as following a puck bouncing off Pelosi’s skate, sophomore forward Mason Marcellus buried a shot to give the Bobcats the 3-0 lead.
Did I mention physicality? Late in the third, Brown’s first-year forward Charlie Gollob was assessed a major penalty for boarding, which led to a brawl in the corner.
On the power play, the Bobcats went to work as a beautiful pass from first-year defenseman Elliott Groenewold gave first-year forward Tyler Borgula an easy tap-in to put the Bobcats up by four goals putting this one away.
“I thought we were prepared. We’ve had some struggles in the past with, you know, when we played Brown on Saturday after we had the Yale home game, because of the emotion in the crowd, the crowd was great tonight too,” said head coach Rand Pecknold. “I kind of challenged the guys last night to be ready for this game like we’re fighting for our lives in the NCAA Tournament.”
Despite all the goals and high performances over the last two days, the biggest roar of the weekend came with just 1:17 remaining in the game, when senior goalie Noah Altman entered the ice.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve gone in, in my career, maybe with preseason like eight times, nine times or something like that, and to hear from the crowd every time is really cool,” said Altman. “ I was very grateful to be able to get in.”
The Bobcats will be back in action next weekend. They will look to clinch the Cleary Cup when they take on Clarkson on Friday at 7:00 p.m. in Potsdam.
