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Mike Vecchione made it into the Union history books, but Cornell found its way into the win column Friday night in a battle between two of ECAC Hockey’s better teams.
The senior center scored a pair of goals to move past Daniel Carr with 159 points and become the school’s all-time Division I scoring leader, but Cornell scored twice in the final 4:09 of the third period to pull out a hard-fought 5-3 victory over the Dutchmen in front of 2,087 at Messa Rink.
“It’s obviously a tremendous honor,” Vecchione said. “I had the privilege to play with Carrsy and this means a lot because I saw how hard he worked every day and how he brought it every night. I give a lot of credit to him and being able to learn from him. I want to thank him for what he’s given me and I’m obviously very proud of my teammates who have helped me achieve this.”
The fourth-ranked Dutchmen, playing without injured starting goaltender Alex Sakellaropoulos, tied the game at 3 at 9:19 of the third period when Ryan Walker scored on a rebound on a power play, but it was Walker’s interference penalty more than six minutes later that led to Jake Weidner’s game-winning goal at 15:51 with the man advantage.
CORNELL 5, UNION 3
Cornell 3 0 2 — 5
Union 1 1 0 — 3
First period—1, Cornell, Rauter 8 (Kaldis, Weidner) 10:00. 2, Union, Vecchione 20 (unassisted) 11:42 (sh). 3, Cornell, Angello 6 (Kubiak, Yates) 12:57 (pp). 4, Cornell, Tschantz 1 (Fiegl) 16:04. Penalties—Starrett, Cor (interference) 3:29; Hynes, Un (crossd-checking) 10:51; Campbell, Un (hooking) 12:23.
Second period—5, Union, Vecchione 21 (Taylor, Foo) 16:33 (pp). Penalties—Freschi, Cor (hooking) 1:43; Buckles, Cor (boarding) 4:58; Campbell, Un (roughing) 11:40; Weidner, Cor (embellishment) 11:40; Starrett, Cor (boarding) 14:33; McCarron, Cor (hooking) 15:17; Vecchione, Un (interference) 19:51.
Third period–6, Union, Walker 3 (Scarfo, DeSimone) 9:19 (pp). 7, Cornell, Weidner 4 (Yates, Kubiak) 15:51 (pp). 8, Cornell, Angello 6 (unassisted) 16:30. Penalties—Cornell bench (too many players on ice, served by Tschantz) 2:49; Freschi, Cor (slashing) 8:57; Walker, Un (interference) 15:37; Desimone, Un (hooking) 18:30.
Shots on goal—Cornell 20-9-6—35; Union 7-16-7—30.
Power-play opportunities—Cornell 2 of 5; Union 2 of 7.
Goalies—Cornell, Gillam 13-5-2 (30 shots-27 saves); Union, Kupsky 1-3-1 (35-30).
T—2:42. A—2,087.
Then Union was again looking for the equalizer when a Dutchmen backchecker gave the puck away and sophomore Anthony Angello skated in alone on backup netminder Jake Kupsky and scored an insurance goal at 16:30.
“I thought we really battled back to come back,” Union coach Rick Bennett said. “Unfortunately at the end there were a couple unfortunate plays and the puck is in the back of our net. I really liked the push back, but now we just have to put that one behind us as quickly as possible.”
Union plays host to Colgate on Saturday.
Bennett and his team had hoped to be celebrating Vecchione’s milestone as well as a win.
“Obviously he has been a tremendous player here and he showed it tonight with those plays on his goals,” Bennett said. “Really would just like to say great job to him and all the teammates that he has played with.”
Vecchione’s second goal of the night and 21st of the season came on a 5-on-3 power play that was just about to expire. He took a pass from Clifton Park’s Jeff Taylor between the circles and rifled a shot past goalie Mitch Gillam at 16:33, a time that was adjusted by a second to keep Union with the man advantage for another 44 seconds. The Dutchmen couldn’t capitalize and it remained 3-2 after 40 minutes.
Cornell came out firing against Kupsky, who hadn’t played since November, and sent 20 shots on goal in the first period alone, three of them finding the back of the net for a 3-1 advantage. Only Vecchione’s pretty short-handed score from the right circle into the left corner kept the Dutchmen in the period.
Cornell first got on the board at the 10-minute mark when Alex Rauter took a pass from Yanni Kaldis down the left wing and beat a defenseless Kupsky. Little more than a minute after Vecchione broke the record, Angello made it 2-1 when he scored outside the left post at 12:57 on a power play. Dwyer Tschantz made it a two-goal lead at 16:04 scoring off a faceoff in front before Union mounted its comeback.
“I thought our team handled it very well tonight,” said Cornell coach Mike Schafer. “It’s a huge win tonight; they’re a great hockey team.”
The Dutchmen lost their second game in a row and remained in second place behind idle St. Lawrence. Union fell to 18-7-2 overall and 11-3-1 in the conference. Sixteenth-ranked Cornell ended a two-game losing skid and improved to 13-6-2 and 8-4-2.
The game didn’t begin until almost 8:40 as part of a doubleheader telecast by American Sports Network and TSN2, and took 2:42 to complete.
Matt Graves is a freelance writer.
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