The men's ice hockey team won twice this weekend, escaping with a 2-1 overtime thriller over Morrisville on Friday before dismantling Lebanon Valley 4-1 back at home on Saturday.
Friday's game matched Geneseo against last year's SUNYAC basement dwellers, the Morrisville Mustangs-from the start it was clear that Geneseo was the better team.
Despite clearly controlling the flow of the game and outshooting the Mustangs 25-14, Geneseo was unable to finish most of their chances, and found themselves only on top 1-0 at the end of the second period, with the one tally coming on the power play by freshman Jonathan Redlick from freshman Jimmy Powers and senior Casey Smith.
Only capitalizing once came back to bite Geneseo, as in the third period Morrisville came out with a lot of energy, thus generating several scoring chances.
Though the Geneseo defense and senior goalie Jeff Pasemko did all they could to keep Morrisville off the scoreboard, the Mustangs finally broke through late in the third, scoring on a power play with just over two minutes remaining to tie the game at one and send it to overtime.
Coach Chris Schultz pointed to Geneseo's lack of execution and a killer instinct as the reason Morrisville was able to eventually tie the game, saying, "When you let a team hang around like that, they are going to get opportunities, and eventually they will score."
Fortunately for the Ice Knights, they were able to execute in overtime. After killing off a penalty at the start of the extra frame, the Knights converted on their own power play opportunity, as senior co-captain Casey Balog put home his second goal of the season, unassisted, to give Geneseo the 2-1 win.
After the first two periods on Saturday against Lebanon Valley it looked like it would be the same story of missed opportunities for Geneseo. The Knights missed two open nets, clanked a shot off the post, and had a goal called back due to a penalty, as the game went to the third intermission still scoreless.
Once the third period came around, it did not take much to spark the Ice Knights offense. Freshman Clint Olson opened the scoring short-handed on a feed from senior co-captain Chris Kestell to put Geneseo up 1-0, and the rout was on.
Just over five minutes later the offense struck again as senior Kevin Galan netted a pass from Smith during a power play to make the score 2-0.
The Ice Knights' momentum continued to grow when sophomore Andrew Rygiel scored his first goal of the season less than a minute later, assisted by Olson and sophomore Michael Forgione.
The Flying Dutchmen seemingly crawled back into the game when they took advantage of a power play and scored at 15:59, but their efforts proved to be too little, too late.
The Rygiel line added an insurance goal on their very next shift following the Lebanon Valley goal when Forgione scored on assists from Rygiel and Olson, extending Geneseo's lead to the final score of 4-1.