No. 4/6 QU Men's Ice Hockey Defeats Cornell, 3-1

Friday, November 18

Lynah Rink // Ithaca, NY

7:00 PM

Quinnipiac University

8-3-1, 4-1ECACH

Cornell

2-3-1, 2-2-1ECACH

Team	1	2	3	F
Quinnipiac	1	2	0	3
Cornell	1	0	0	1

11/18/2016 9:10:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey

Box Score

By: QU Sports Information

ITHACA, New York – No. 4/6 Quinnipiac men's ice hockey defeated Cornell, 3-1, in the Big Red's home-opener in front of a capacity crowd at the always-hostile Lynah Rink in Ithaca, New York. The Bobcats third-straight win pushes their overall record to 8-3-1 while they also improve to 4-1-0 in ECAC Hockey play. Cornell drops to 2-3-1 overall and 2-2-1 in league action.

Tim Clifton (Matawan, New Jersey) scored his team-leading seventh goal of the season while Craig Martin (Trail, British Columbia) had a goal and an assist. Bo Pieper (Roseville, Minnesota) also scored for the Bobcats. In goal, Chris Truehl (Madison, Wisconsin) stopped 19 of Cornell's 20 shots on goal to improve to 6-2-1 on the season and 3-1-0 in ECAC Hockey. Truehl has now won three straight games and five of his last six.

Quinnipiac's was 1-for-4 on the power play to give them six goals with a man-advantage in their last three games. In addition, the Bobcats' penalty-kill unit is 34 for its last 35 with a man-down and has killed the last 29 penalties it has been whistled for. Quinnipiac entered the season with the top power play and penalty kill over the past five seasons, cumulatively, in NCAA Division I men's ice hockey.

Clifton's team-leading seventh goal of the year came off an incredible pass by Derek Smith (Apple Valley, Minnesota) who settled the puck on the Bobcats goalline and spied Martin sitting in the neutral zone on the opposite side of the ice. Smith threaded the needle, finding Martin's stick just above the blue line in the Big Red's defensive zone. Smith then zipped a pass to Clifton in the slot, who dropped to his knees but held onto the puck and back-handed a shot top-shelf as he slid across the crease to give Quinnipiac a 1-0 lead.

Cornell evened the score less than three minutes later when the Big Red's fore-check peppered Truehl with shots. Patrick McCarron ripped a hot on goal from the slot before Mitch Vanderlaan picked up the rebound on Truehl's save. Truehl turned back Vanderlaan's bid before Anthony Angello picked up the rebound on the opposite post and put back his second attempt to tie the game at 1-1.

Coming out of the first intermission, Martin picked up his second point of the game on his fourth goal of the season, this one coming on the power play. Chase Priskie (Pembroke Pines, Florida) held the puck at the point before handing it to Martin in the face-off circle. Martin then tipped a pass to K.J. Tiefenwerth (Bellmore, New York) before cycling behind the net. Tiefenwerth made an incredible pass across the crease to the opposite post where Martin received it and wristed it past Cornell's Mitch Gillam to give Quinnipiac a 2-1 lead.

Bo Pieper (Roseville, Minnesota) made is 3-1 with his fourth goal of the year with less then four minutes to play in the period. Brogan Rafferty (Dundee, Illinois) stood on the blue line in the Cornell defensive zone and jammed the puck back along the boards on an attempted clear. Pieper picked up the puck, spun and threw it in front of the Cornell goal where it caromed off a defenders leg and past Gillam to give the Bobcats a 3-1 lead.

Quinnipiac is back in action on Saturday, Nov. 18 when it travels to Hamilton, New York to take on Colgate in an ECAC Hockey match-up set for 4 p.m. The Bobcats will then head to Belfast, Northern Ireland to compete in the 2016 Friendship Four, featuring an ECAC Hockey match-up against St. Lawrence on Friday, Nov. 25. The winner of that game will face the winner of a Hockey East showdown between UMass and Vermont on Saturday, Nov. 26.