Western Michigan vs. RPI at Houston Field House, Troy,NY
attendance 2959
officials: Murphy-Shea-Cooke
 
period -1-
G  7:14 RPI (1-0) Gardiner(Murphy)
P  9:42 RPI Caley (roughing)
P 11:45 WMU Wilkinson (interference)
 
period -2-
no goals, no penalties
 
period -3-
G  0:35 RPI (2-0) Gardiner(St. Hilaire,Murphy)
P  7:23 WMU Novock (roughing)
G  7:58 RPI (3-0) Gardiner(Riva,Murley) ppg
G  9:26 WMU (3-1) Mitchell(Kline)
G  9:43 RPI (4-1) Murley(Gosselin)
P 11:06 RPI Gardiner (roughing)
P 11:06 WMU Mindel (roughing)
P 12:31 RPI Reigstad (holding)
G 13:42 WMU (4-2) Farquhar(Andrews,Gove)  ppg
P 16:37 RPI Murray (holding the stick)
  18:13 WMU timeout
  18:13 WMU goalie out
G 19:45 RPI(5-2) St. Hilaire(Murphy,Reigstad)  eng
 
saves         1   2   3   t
Prekaski(RPI) 8   6   15  29
Barnes(WMU)   10  8   15  33
 
 
It must be tough being a goaltender at RPI nowadays.
Joel Laing gives up one goal against Union last week
and he loses the starting job in the nets. With Joel
Laing's shutout streak ended, Coach Dan Fridgen returned
to his normal goalie rotation, starting Scott Prekaski
in the goal tonight and Scott answered the challenge by
beating the Broncos of Western Michigan 5-2. He was
helped by Pete Gardiner who scored the first 3 goals
of the game for the Engineers, Mark Murphy who had 3 assists
and Matt Murley and Alain St. Hilaire each of whom had
a goal and an assist.
 
The game started out with the Engineers controlling the
play but being unable to penetrate the WMU wall in front
of the net. The Engineers finally got on the board at 7:14 of
the 1st when Mark Murphy found Pete Gardiner standing to the
right of Bronco goaltender Matt Barnes. It was unclear whether
Gardiner was taking a shot or passing across the slot but he
poked the puck across the slot and the puck hit a defenseman's
stick and deflected past a surprised Barnes to put the
Engineers up 1-0. Up to that point RPI had pretty much
controlled play keeping the majority of play in the WMU end.
But the Broncos started playing a clutch and grab style play and
when it became apparent that referee John Murphy had left his
whistle home, the play got a bit chippy (a lot of cross checking,
holding and flailing elbows). The Engineers responded with some
chippiness of their own and the remainder of the
first period and all the 2nd was blue line to blue line action with
no-one able to establish any offense or territorial advantage.
 
But the Engineers got back on track in the third scoring with just
35 seconds gone to go up 2-0. When WMU's Frank Novock took
a roughing call at 7:23 the Engineers wasted no time
scoring 35 seconds later when Danny Riva found Matt Murley
alone in front. Murley one timed it but missed the net. The puck
bounced off the boards behind the net and right out front to
Pete Gardiner who picked it up and popped it into an empty
net completing his natural hat trick. The Broncos got on
the board at 9:26 of the 3rd but the Engineers responded
17 seconds later when JF Gosselin poked the puck away from
a WMU forward breaking out of his own zone. The puck found
a surprised Matt Murley alone in front of the net and a more
surprised Matt Barnes. Murley put a nice move on Barnes
and slid the puck home for a 4-1 Engineer lead. The Broncos
wouldn't play dead and closed the gap to 4-2 at 13:42 on a power
play goal from Bryan Farquhar but the Engineers held
off WMU and scored an empty netter with just 15 seconds left
in the game.
 
The Engineers winning streak continues but neither team played
an outstanding game either on offense or defense. RPI played
just good enough to win. One thinks that a higher level of play
will be necessary next weekend when St. Lawrence and Clarkson
come to town. But meanwhile, the Engineers and Broncos meet
again on Staurday night as RPI closes out its non-league
schedule for the year.
 
Mark Lewin
RPI '69
 
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