Box Score
RUTLAND, Vt. – The Plattsburgh State men’s hockey team’s first trip to Spartan Arena quickly became one it would soon like to forget as the Cardinals fell to the Castleton Spartans, 5-2, Saturday night in a non-conference matchup.
Castleton got a pair of goals from Dan Bell, while Ross Herzog and Eric Mack each added a pair of assists as the Spartans improved to 8-5-2 overall with the victory. The win is also the first-ever for Castleton over the Cardinals in the program’s ten-year history. Plattsburgh St. dropped to 9-5-1 with the loss.
The Spartans came out the aggressor and were rewarded at 9:43 when freshman Gabriel Cromp ripped a slap shot from the right point past Mathieu Cadieux. Mack earned the assist on the play.
At the 2:38 mark of the second period it was Brett Zeggil who pushed Castleton’s lead to 2-0. Mack was in the midst of the action again, firing a pass from behind the net to Zeggil charging in, he took the puck and flipped a shot over Cadieux’s shoulder for the goal.
Bell extended the Spartan lead to 3-0 at 10:33, scoring with a wrister off assists from Ryan Delorme and Brian Greene.
Just 32 seconds later Castleton made it 4-0 on a slap shot from the left point by Ryan Frost. The sophomore received a nice lead pass from Charles Bando at the left corner of the blue line, skated in and ripped a shot that glanced off goalie Josh Leis’s glove and into the back of the net.
Plattsburgh St. finally got on the board at 15:05 to cut the Castleton lead to 4-1. Brandon Beadow scored on a slap shot from the right point off a pass across the ice from Paul Puglisi.
In the third period, the Cardinals finally showed some life at 11:41 when Kevin Emmerling skated in from the left point and wristed a shot past Eric Cinotti to bring Plattsburgh within two.
Trailing 4-2, Plattsburgh St. earned a power play with just 2:12 remaining. The Cardinals called a timeout and pulled Foley to give them a 6-4 man advantage for the next two minutes.
Castleton was able to withstand a flurry of shots in the final minutes, blocking numerous attempts. Bell’s penalty expired with 12 seconds left, just after Herzog sent a puck down ice. Bell skated after the puck, took it off the boards and put it in net with just 4.8 seconds to end the Cardinals’ comeback attempt.
Cinotti was strong in net with 25 saves, including 11 in the final period. Cadieux made ten saves before being pulled in the second period. Josh Leis gave up one goal with no saves in 32 seconds while Foley finished the game and made 12 stops in 26:48.
Plattsburgh’s loss to Castleton was just one of a handful of upsets on Saturday night throughout Division III. Previously-unbeaten and top-ranked Norwich suffered a 5-3 loss to Neumann while No. 2 Oswego State dropped a 6-0 decision to No. 8 Utica.
The Cardinals will look to regroup before next weekend as Plattsburgh returns home for the last two non-conference games of the regular season. Middlebury arrives at the Stafford Ice Arena Friday night before the weekend wraps up with Williams on Saturday. Both games are set for 7 p.m.
