The Ice Knights hosted the SUNY Cortland Red Dragons on Saturday Feb. 8, Senior Night. Geneseo defeated the visitors 7-1 before traveling to Oswego on Sunday Feb. 9 where they notched another win over the rival Lakers (Xavier Delcid/photo editor).
While holding a narrow SUNYAC lead over the SUNY Oswego Lakers on Friday Feb. 7, the Geneseo Ice Knights were excitedly anticipating traveling to Oswego for a huge, rivalry matchup with real playoff implications. However, Mother Nature had other plans as a snowstorm contributed to the game being postponed and rescheduled to Sunday Feb. 9.
With the game pushed back a few days, the Ice Knights turned their attention to a momentous Senior Night game on Saturday Feb. 8 against the SUNY Cortland Red Dragons.
Seven seniors were honored during the first intermission at the Ira S. Wilson Ice Arena and at that point Geneseo was already leading the Red Dragons 4-0. Senior forward Andrew Romano and senior forward Conlan Keenan combined for two points each during the first 20 minutes prior to the ceremony, proving how talented this group of seniors is.
Adding to the spectacular talents of the Class of 2020, those seven seniors have now combined for 639 career points after Sunday’s game. That marks a new record for most career points by a single senior class, surpassing the Class of 1991 who scored a total of 635 points.
As the game continued after the festivities, Geneseo went on to add three more goals, including goals from senior forward Tyson Empey and senior defender Teddy McCabe.
Junior goaltender Aaron Mackay was on track for his first career shutout until he allowed a goal with just under 2:30 to play in the game. Mackay still had a great game, making 18 saves on 19 shots.
The following night, Geneseo traveled to Oswego to make up their game with the Lakers. Again, Mackay was in net despite it being a back-to-back weekend. He had one of his best games as a Knight—making a season-high 29 saves.
Offensively, junior forward Devin Brink got the scoring started in the first period and senior defender Cam Russell made the score 2-0 in the second period.
That two-goal lead did not last long as Oswego started mounting their comeback with a goal at the 17:30 mark of the second period.
Geneseo had a chance to extend their lead to start the third period while on a five-minute power play after Keenan drew a big hit from Oswego sophomore forward Marc Lewis, a hit that resulted in Lewis being ejected from the game.
The Ice Knights’ power play has been very successful over the past few games, but Geneseo could not score on the man-up advantage. However, shortly after the five-minute penalty expired, Geneseo drew another power play opportunity and took advantage this time as sophomore defenseman Matthew Doran scored on a blistering slapshot to extend the lead to 3-1.
The Lakers then responded with two goals of their own over a span of two minutes to tie the game at 3-3.
With 1:30 left in the game, Russell broke the tie with his second goal of game, marking his first career multi-goal game. For good measure, Keenan buried an empty-netter as time expired to ice the game and secure the 5-3 victory.
Geneseo will play their final home game of the season on Friday Feb. 14 at 7 p.m. They will try to earn two of the final three points necessary to clinch the first overall seed in the SUNYAC playoffs.