Clarkson Upsets Cornell To Advance to ECAC Semifinals in Albany

While the Harvard Crimson sat at home last night, the rest of the ECAC playoff contenders waged war on each other, vying for the remaining spots for the tournament’s Final Four in Albany this weekend.

The semifinal games are held Friday afternoon and evening, and the Consolation and Championship games are held on Saturday in the afternoon and evening, respectively.

All the best-of-three quarterfinal series went the full three games, the only exception being Harvard’s sweep of Brown. The end result featured two favorites and an underdog advancing, setting up an unpredictable Final Four in Albany. Harvard will take on Dartmouth in one semifinal, while Colgate will play Clarkson in the other.

CLARKSON BEATS CORNELL 2-1

In a surprise that shocked many, the Clarkson Golden Knights went into Lynah Rink—one of the toughest arenas for opposing teams in any sport—and took two straight from the Big Red to advance to Albany.

Cornell, the winner of last year’s Whitelaw Trophy as ECAC Tournament champion, was not able to return to Albany to defend its prize.

The Knights dropped Game 1, 5-1. It was an ugly affair, with the teams combining for 71 penalty minutes between them. Game 2 wasn’t much prettier; there were 48 minutes of box time and the game went back-and-forth until Clarkson’s Mike Sullivan scored an unassisted power play goal two-and-a-half minutes into the third.

Clarkson played strong defense the rest of the way, and netminder Dustin Traylen stopped 10 shots in the third to make the score hold up. Game 3 was a clean affair, at least in comparison to its two predecessors, but it was a game Clarkson dominated from the get-go.

The Golden Knights scored a 4-on-3 power play goal in the first, and added a short-handed tally from Mac Faulkner with less than a minute to go in the second. Cornell tried to mount a comeback but allowed three third period goals, before finally losing 5-1.

DARTMOUTH BEATS RENSSELAER 2-1

The Dartmouth Big Green, seeded No. 4 in the ECAC tournament, rallied after losing Game 1 to Rensselaer 3-1. The Engineers got a strong effort out of netminder Nathan Marsters in Game 1; he stopped 34 of 35 shots.

Marsters was not so solid the rest of the way; on Saturday night, he gave up five goals on 35 shots and this time it was Dartmouth’s Dan Yacey’s turn to shine. Yacey stopped all 33 shots he faced to blank Rensselaer and even the series at 1-1.

Game 3 went down to the wire, with both Yacey and Marsters turning in excellent performances in goal. The game’s only score came on a four-on-four situation 21 seconds into the third when Dartmouth’s Eric Przepiorka tallied the game-winner. Dartmouth went on to win 1-0, setting up a rematch of last year’s semifinal in Albany, a game that Harvard won 5-3.

COLGATE BEATS ST. LAWRENCE 2-1

This wild and close series—each game was won by a single-goal margin—started off the wrong way for the Colgate Raiders, the Cleary Cup winner as the top regular season finisher in the ECAC. The Raiders fell behind 1-0 in the series on Friday night when the Saints’ Mike McKenna turned aside 34 shots to lead his team to victory.

His counterpart, though, shined for the remainder of the series. Colgate’s Steve Silverthorn stopped 25 and 26 shots in Games 2 and 3, and the Raiders received just enough offense to prevail.

In Saturday’s 1-0 win, a game where the clean-skating Saints were whistled for 23 minutes in penalties, Justin Spencer potted the game’s only goal two minutes into the second period. And last night, the Raiders’ Mike Campaner came through with a big goal to break a 1-1 tie midway through the second. With Silverthorn strong in net, that tally proved to be the game—and series—winner

The top-seeded Raiders will face Clarkson, the tournament’s lowest remaining seed, in the semifinals.

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.