Complete Box Score

ITHACA, N.Y. - The Mercyhurst men's hockey team scored two goals within a span of 2:07 in the third period to come from behind and knock off #19 Cornell 5-4 on Saturday night in front of a sellout crowd of 4,267 at Lynah Rink. The Lakers, who defeated RIT on Friday night, have now won two in a row to improve to 2-4 overall on the season. It was the Big Red's first game of the season.

Junior Paul Chiasson scored a power play goal, his first goal of the season, at the 10:42 mark of the third period to tie the game at 4-4 and then freshman Nardo Nagtzaam scored his second goal of the game at the 12:49 mark to provide the winning margin. The Lakers led 3-2 going to the third period, but Cornell scored two early third period goals to take a 4-3 lead, setting up the Laker heroics.

The Big Red got on the board first, 5:38 into the opening period, on a goal from Sean Collins. But, the Lakers responded with two goals to take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission. Sophomore Nick Jones scored his first goal of the season, a power play tally at 12:05, on assists from freshmen Tyler Shiplo and Nagtzaam.  Nagtzaam then notched his first collegiate goal at 17:49 of the opening twenty minutes. Jones and senior Derek Elliott had the assists.

The Lakers extended the lead to 3-1 at the 1:27 mark of the second period, when freshman Matthew Zay registered his first collegiate goal. Sophomore Daniel O'Donoghue had the lone assist. Cornell, however, would respond with three consecutive goals to take a 4-3 lead. The Big Red's first goal came with 8:19 left in the second period with Joakim Ryan beating Laker goaltender Max Strang.

Cornell started the scoring in the third on goals by John Esposito - exactly one minute into the final period - and then by Ryan at 7:07. But, the Lakers had some late game magic left in the tank after a hard fought 2-1 victory over RIT the night before to open conference play.

Chiasson scored his first of the season on assists from Elliott and Shiplo at 10:42. It was the Lakers' second power play goal of the night, as Mercyhurst went 2-for-3 with the man advantage. Then, the Nijmegen, Netherlands native buried his second goal of the night and second of his young career at 12:49 on assists from Chiasson and junior Grant Blakey. Strang did the rest, stopping everything Cornell fired at him the rest of the way, and even got some help from the post in the closing seconds.

Neither goaltender faced a lot of rubber on the night, with Cornell holding a 23-19 shot advantage for the entire game. Strang made 19 saves for his second consecutive victory, one night after stopping a career-high 49 shots in the win over RIT. Meanwhile, Cornell's starting goaltender, Andy Iles, managed to stop just 14-of-19 Mercyhurst shots to drop to 0-1 on the season.

The game was also light in penalties, with the Lakers penalized just one time for  too many men on the ice. Cornell would capatalize on the lone power play opportunity. Cornell was whistled for three minor infractions.

The Lakers will return home next Friday snd Saturday for Atlantic Hockey Association action against Connecticut. The Huskies were the team that ended the Lakers' season a year ago, knocking off Mercyhurst in the best-of-three quarterfinal series two games to none. Faceoffs both nights are scheduled for 7:05 p.m.