GOALS                                         SHOTS
 
St. Lawrence (10-14-1, 5-10)  0-1-1  2        SLU      2-9-8   19
Princeton (12-7-3, 7-6-2)     2-2-1  5        Prin.    9-7-8   24
 
 
PERIOD 1
--------
P  Kelley 15 (Masters, Brush)  14:42
P  Brown 2 (Verdon, Bois)      16:34
 
PERIOD 2
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P  Kopeck 7 (Early, Colquhoun)     10:03
P  Kelley 16 (O'Connor, Miller)    15:57
SL Cullen 9 (DiFrancesco, Cassidy) 19:00
 
PERIOD 3
--------
SL DiFrancesco 4 (Prpic, McLaughlin) 1:53
P  Bois 7 (O'Connor, Flahr)         18:44
 
Very lackluster game early on, neither team doing much.  A lot of chippy play.
Jon Kelley came out of nowhere, splitting the defense and beating Clint Owen to
give Princeton the lead.  He has scored 6 First Goals this season, a great
stat.  Princeton's 4-1-1 when he does it.
   Less than two minutes later, the good forechecking of Bois and Verdon caused
another goal.  Bois actually got set up in front with Owen out of position, but
 put his shot off the skate of a defender coming back on the play.  Verdon, who
is still scoreless but playing good hockey lately, got it behind the net, and
tried a wraparound, but a stick on the ice was in his way, so he set up a
streaking defender, Dan Brown, on the play in the slot and Brown roofed it.
 
The referees (Ammian and Kelly) started trying to regain control in the second
period and made a series of dumb calls, as is likely to happen when referees
realize they are letting the game get away and go overboard in reverse.  There
were bad calls on both teams.
   Still, Mervin Kopeck got behind one defender and absolutely faked Tom Perry
out of his pants, then beat Owen easily.  With it 3-0 and Princeton on a
power-play, Mike Bois of the Tigers was given a 5-minute major for charging on
a brutal, but typical, call.  It drives me crazy when refs make this call.  The
Saints defender (I forget who) was standing with the puck in the corner to the
right of Owen, about two feet from the boards.  And he just stood there for
about three seconds.  So Bois comes over to take the puck from him and put a
shoulder to his shoulder, and of course the defender went down, and a penalty
was called.  This is NOT a penalty.  What was the SLU player doing standing in
one spot waiting to be hit?  What did he expect?  Obviously, defenders
sometimes try to freeze the puck in the corner, but he was 2 feet off the
boards and a target.  It was typical of SLU's defense play all night, a lot of
standing around waiting for Princeton's forechecking to take the puck -- they
were horrible, but that's a different story.
   Every time a player takes a spill into the boards, the player making the
check gets penalized.  Believe me, I am very against charging and boarding, but
refs go overboard almost every time.
   Anyway, Princeton wasn't shorthanded at all until there were 50 seconds left
in the major thanks to a series of penalties on St. Lawrence.  With 7 seconds
left in the major, SLU finally scored on a shot from the point that Konte
probably should have had.  Of course, he hadn't seen many shots to that point.
 
   In the third, SLU came out fired up.  They got the second goal as Prpic
centered the pass as DiFrancisco came charging down the slot.  The pass was in
the air, but the puck went off DiFrancesco's stomach and went it.  It was ruled
good because it was inadvertant.
   Princeton started making some mistakes, but SLU couldn't take advantage.
DiFrancesco was called for a penalty at 6:00.  Then came a series of bad calls,
starting with the worst of the night, by far.  I didn't notice until later, but
Bracco (in for Owen, who was hurt on the 4th goal.  Bruised back), backed up
into Verdon while trying to play the puck and tripped.  He layed on the ice for
-- no exaggeration -- 15 seconds while Princeton worked the puck around.  No
one noticed for 15 seconds until Ammian blew the whistle and signaled a penalty
on Verdon.  I am absolutely convinced he Made it UP!  He had no idea what
happened, saw Bracco, then made up the call.  If he did see it, he would have
blown the whistle 10 seconds earlier because Princeton was in control of the puck.
    Princeton got two more minors in the next 7 minutes, but killed them all
off easily thanks to the great defense of senior forward Ian Sharp.  At 18:24,
Kelley and Ken Ruddock were given coincidental minors, and on the same scrap,
Tiger Matt Brush, Kelley and Ruddock were given Misconducts, and Ruddock was
given a game misconduct.  Not sure quite what he did to warrant that, but he
will now miss Saturday's game.
    O'Connor set up Flahr in the slot for a wide-open shot, but he fanned.  He
got it back behind the net, then set up Bois for the clincher.
 
   Good game, overall, now the big test.  Keith O'Brien did a great job
shadowing Burke Murphy, who has had 2 hat tricks against Princeton in the past.
 Last game, against Brown, Ryan Mulhern was completely taken out of the game.
Unfortunately, against Clarkson, there's too many weapons to worry about.
    Princeton got no help from Brown as far as catching Colgate is concerned,
but they have a game in hand and are 1 point back.  RPI is also 1 pt. ahead,
and plays Vermont.
 
   Speaking of RPI, I bet someone before the game they would lose.  Not only is
RPI an enigma, they have been for a couple of years, but now they're
predictably inconsistent, if there is such a thing.  They beat every good team,
and lose to every bad team.  EVERY ONE.
 
                            Adam Wodon