The Geneseo Knights were in Plattsburgh on Friday Nov. 9 as they tried to right the ship after a 4-4 tie against Buffalo State the weekend before. The Knights have not gone longer than one game without a win since late November of last season when they lost to Elmira College and tied with SUNY Oswego in back-to-back games.
Early in the first period, the Knights ceded the first goal of the game. The Knights fell behind 2-0, then 3-0 while down a player in the second and third period respectively. SUNY Plattsburgh was two for three on the penalty on Friday.
Geneseo was fairly successful on the power play as well, capitalizing on two of their five chances. Junior forward David Szmyd scored late in the game, followed just 33 seconds later by junior forward Tyson Empey, bringing the score to 3-2 with three minutes left to play. The late goal was Empey’s seventh goal of the season and his fifth power play goal this year.
The Knights pulled senior goalie Devin McDonald, who made 22 saves in the game, in order to try and score an elusive third goal late in the game, but their efforts came up fruitless, bringing their SUNYAC record to 1-1-1.
Geneseo outshot Plattsburgh 40-25. The shot total better reflected the Knights’ overall play rather than the final goal count, according to senior forward Anthony Marra,
“Sometimes you get the bounces and sometimes you don’t,” Marra said. “We dominated for the most part … but didn’t capitalize on our chances.”
Marra and the Knights had to look past the loss and turn their attention to SUNY Potsdam the next evening, Saturday Nov. 10.
Geneseo was able to capitalize late in all three periods, beginning in the first when junior forward Conlan Keenan snuck one past Potsdam off a pass from junior forward Andrew Romano. The breakaway goal was Keenan’s third goal of the season and gave Romano his ninth assist of the season.
In the second period, Empey doubled the Knights’ goal total in the game, and increased his season goal total to eight.
Junior defenseman Cam Russell took advantage of an empty net with 44 seconds left in the game to put the Knights up 3-0. Geneseo was able to maintain that score for the remaining few seconds and improved to 2-1-1 in SUNYAC play.
Junior defender Will Campion credits the Knights third shutout of the year to head coach Chris Schultz’s decision to shake things up a little bit.
“There w[ere] some switches in lines … credit to our team for having the next man step up,” Campion said. “We were able to keep the puck out of our net and get a shutout which was a big goal for the defense and the whole team, that’s the type of hockey we want to play.”
The solid play of the defense was conveniently paired with McDonald’s perfect performance between the posts, marking his ninth career shutout.
The Knights were ranked third in the nation headed into the weekend. After going 1-0-1, the Knights dropped to the sixth spot nationally. While Marra and a few of his teammates do pay attention to the rankings, they do not let it affect their play on the ice.
“[The rankings] don’t really change our outlook or our perspective because we are only on game six,” Marra said. “We work at one game at a time, and we will see where we’re at in March because that is our end goal.”
Whatever rank they are, the Knights look to work on their season record and will have the privilege to play both weekend games at home against Morrisville on Friday Nov. 16 and Saturday Nov. 17.