Mar. 11: Game one of the best of three ECAC quarterfinal series between St. Lawrence and Clarkson was just what most of the sell-out crowd of 2561 expected on Friday night.

Senior captain Brian Ward put a shot over the shoulder of Clarkson goaltender Greg Lewis and under the crossbar 8:12 into overtime to lift the Saints to a 3-2 win over their arch-rival and a 1-0 series lead in the best-of-three series. Game two will be played Saturday night at 7.
 

The fourth-seeded Saints battled from behind to secure the series lead as Clarkson scored the only goal of the second period to take a 2-1 lead, but SLU came out strong in the third and tied it on a goal by freshman Jacob Pritchard 6:59 into the third. Lewis and Saint goaltender Kyle Hayton kept it deadlocked through the rest of regulation and well into the extra period.

"We got off to a good start with the early goal, but the goal they scored gave them some momentum and I thought they really carried the play through the last part of the first period and through the second," said Saint coach Greg Carvel.

"I give a lot of credit to our guys. They really regrouped in the third period and found a way to score a goal. I liked our energy through the third and we could have won it there quickly in overtime, but it is exactly the kind of game I expected. They're a hard team to score against…I thought we did a pretty good job of defensively limiting them, but they do the same."

The Saints nearly won it in the opening minute of overtime as Gavin Bayreuther set up a Saint rush and SLU had an empty net to shoot at, but Lewis got a piece of one shot and the Saints missed on a follow-up. Ward scored the winner off a three-on-one rush, taking a pass from Drew Smolcynski and curling into the slot before making Lewis commit and then snapping the shot over his shoulder. It was the 10^th of the year for Ward and his fourth game-winning goal  of the year.

SLU took an early lead when junior wing Alexander Dahl tipped defenseman Nolan Gluchowski's shot from the point past Lewis 4:57 into the game, but Clarkson battled back and scored when Perry D'Arisso scored his sixth of the year from a tough angle at 14:14.

The Golden Knights, who went into overtime in each of their first round wins over Princeton last weekend, took a 2-1 lead at 10:41 of the third when Kelly Summers found Nic Pierog coming out of the penalty box after a minor on Clarkson and Pierog scored his fifth of the season on a breakaway.

Pritchard ran his scoring streak to ten games with his eighth of the year to tie it in the third period, putting a rebound of a Ryan Lough shot back past Lewis.

Hayton, who went into the game with a 1.15 goals against average and a .965 save percentage in six career starts against Clarkson finished with 40 saves for the Saints while Lewis had 30 for Clarkson which had a 42-33 edge in shots on goal.

"The 3-2 score is not surprising," Carvel concluded. "Just a great job by Brian Ward to show great patience and finish there on the winner."