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Crusaders top Griffs, 4-2
Holy Cross opened up a 3-0 lead, and Canisius (5-7-1, 3-5-1
Atlantic Hockey) couldn’t recover en route to losing 4-2
Friday night at the Buffalo State Sports Arena.
“It was a good hockey game,” Canisius coach Dave Smith
said. “We continued to learn that when we skate and play with
that little extra energy needed, we can be a very good hockey
team.”
Holy Cross (8-3-1, 6-2-1) scored 74 seconds into the contest when a
shot by Marc Bianchi popped out of Canisius goalie Max
Buetow’s glove and was swatted into the net by Kai Magnussen
for his second goal of the season. Later in the period, the
Crusaders scored the first of their two power play goals when Tyler
McGregor took the puck across the blue line, dumped it to Jon
Landry who was cutting to the net. Landry hit Pierre
Napert-Frenette with a backhand pass who jammed it home to give the
Crusaders a 2-0 lead.
The Crusaders got their second power play goal 59 seconds into the
second period when Frenette-Napert sent a cross-ice pass to Landry
who banged it in on Buetow’s stick side to make the score
3-0.
“The difference in tonight’s game was special
teams,” Smith said. “We need to continue to improve our
penalty kill. Our power play was good tonight. We just didn’t
score.”
The third period started with a flourish as three goals were scored
in 52 seconds. Canisius got its first goal of the game at the 1:02
mark of the third period when senior forward Andrew Dawe took a
pass from junior forward Billy Irish-Baker and beat Holy Cross
goalie Tony Quesada high on the glove side. Holy Cross responded 24
seconds lader when James Sixsmith got his second goal of the
season. The Griffs came right back at the 1:56 mark when senior
forward David Ovcjak scored his second goal of the year to provide
the final margin of 4-2.
Quesada made 31 saves and improved to 6-2-1 with the win while
Buetow stopped 27 shots and fell to 1-3-1.
Canisius and Holy Cross close the weekend set with a game Saturday
night. Faceoff is set for 7 p.m. Jay Moran will have the call on
CJRN 710 AM and GoGriffs.com.
