SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Skidmore College men's hockey team earned its first State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) point of the season on Friday night, skating to a 2–2 tie with visiting Cortland.
- Junior Cooper Rice and sophomore Brandon Spaulding scored for Skidmore (1–3–1, 0–2–1 SUNYAC).
- JC Humphreys and Nathan Garnier tallied for the Red Dragons.
- Skidmore held leads of 1–0 and 2–1, but Cortland answered within five minutes on both occasions to force overtime.
- Ryan Stratton had the best chance of the extra period, ringing a wrist shot off the crossbar.
- Cortland (4–2–1, 2–0–1) recorded the only shot on goal in overtime — a look from Colby Seitz that Tommy Aitken turned aside.
- Aitken finished with 23 saves, including 11 in the second period.
- Shane Shelest made 22 stops for Cortland.
- The Thoroughbreds killed three first-period penalties and held Cortland without a shot on its first two extra-man opportunities.
- Skidmore generated eight of the game's first nine shots before the Red Dragons produced four attempts in the final 2:42 of the frame.
- Skidmore nearly opened the scoring 21 seconds in when Dylan Shane hit the post on the game's first attempt.
- The Thoroughbreds broke through at 7:58 of the second period when Rice finished an end-to-end rush on a one-timer set up by Ryan Waltman and Tyler Fogu.
- Cortland answered 2:24 later as Humphreys jumped off the bench, took a perfect Evan Beaudry stretch pass, and scored. Andrew Clouden added an assist.
- Spaulding restored the Skidmore lead at 5:24 of the third, ripping home a feed from Shane Baker from behind the goal line. Jacob Zwirecki collected the secondary assist after starting the sequence with a dump-in.
- Garnier tied it with 9:43 left in regulation, batting in a rebound off the end wall on the power play after an initial Alex Zakrzewski shot went wide and bounced out front.
- Cortland finished 1-for-4 on the power play; Skidmore went 0-for-1.
- The Red Dragons won the postgame shootout 1–0 to secure a potential playoff tiebreaker, though the game officially goes down as a tie with each team earning one SUNYAC point.
UP NEXT
Skidmore concludes the weekend at home on Saturday at 4 p.m. against Morrisville.