Potsdam, NY – The Clarkson University Men's Hockey team could not continue the strong play from Friday's effort against nationally ranked Cornell as Colgate handed the Golden Knights their worst loss of the season, a 6-1 defeat before 2,609 fans at Cheel Arena Saturday night.
Jon Smyth recorded a career-high four goals to lead Colgate to its first victory over Clarkson in nine games, snapping an 0-7-1 skid against the Green and Gold.The Raiders improved their record to 4-3-1 overall and to 2-2 in the ECAC. Clarkson drops to 4-3-3 overall and to 1-2-1 in the conference.
After suffering back-to-back shutout losses to the Knights last season, Colgate finally broke the drought against Clarkson at 13:38 of the first period. Dmitry Yashin connected on a 5-on-3 power play at the top of the crease to give the Raiders their first goal against the Knights in a span of 144:52.
Clarkson got into early penalty trouble to start the second putting Colgate on three straight power plays and the Raiders capitalized when Jon Smyth tallied at 6:16 to give the visitors a 2-0 lead. Smyth scored his second of the game at 12:30 and fired in his fourth goal of the year, which chased Clarkson starter, sophomore Dustin Traylen (Kirkland, QUE) out of the game. Colgate made it 4-0 with 2:59 remaining in the middle frame.
Smyth closed out the first hat trick by a Colgate player in two years at 3:48 of the third period and then added a shorthanded marker at 15:28 for his sixth goal of the season to round out the most productive game of his career.
Clarkson’s Rob McFeeters (Woodville, ONT) scored a power-play goal at 16:11 to spoil Raider goaltender David Cann’s bid to become the first Colgate goaltender to ever shutout the Knights. Cann finished with 36 saves as Clarkson outshot Colgate 37-33. Traylen posted 16 stops, while senior Dan Weinrieb (Amherst, NY) made 11 saves coming off the bench.
The Raiders were 2-of-9 on the power play, while the Knights were 1-of-5 with the man-advantage
Clarkson will look to rebound when it hosts arch-rival St. Lawrence University next Saturday to close out a nine-game home stand.
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