Captain Joe Sullivan scored two goals in the third period, including one shorthanded, but the St. Lawrence men's hockey team couldn't fully erase an early deficit in a 4-2 loss to No. 3 Clarkson on Saturday night in Appleton Arena.

Saturday marked the first time the Saints had scored more than one goal since a 4-4 tie with RPI on November 4. Sullivan also had a pair in that game as well. He and fellow senior Nolan Gluchowski finished with a game-high five shots on goal.

With the loss, the Saints finish the first semester with a 1-14-1 record and are 0-7-1 in ECAC Hockey contests. Meanwhile, Clarkson extends its unbeaten streak to 11 games and improves to 15-3-1 with a perfect 8-0-0 record in conference play.

The Golden Knights got two quick goals from Sheldon Rempal and Dylan Gareau just 50 seconds apart in the first four minutes of the game to take an early 2-0 lead.

After a scoreless second period, Clarkson's Kevin Charyszyn extended to lead to 3-0 with a power play goal at the 3:45 mark of the third.

St. Lawrence had the better of the play in the final two frames and outshot the Golden Knights 18-10 during that stretch, but was also issued seven minor penalties, which suppressed any momentum they had worked to gain.



The team finally broke through shorthanded after Mike Marnell stole the puck off the stick of Jere Astren after a battle in the neutral zone carried down the right wing side with tons of speed. He was stopped by the right pad of Clarkson's Jake Kielly on the backhand, but Sullivan was there to lift the rebound over the outstretched netminder for the Saints' first goal to make it a 3-1 game at 10:21.

It was also the Saints first shorthanded goal of the season and the first shorty for Sullivan since his rookie season in 2014-15.

Minutes later, after successfully killing off 1:44 of a 5-on-3 power play for Clarkson, the Saints pulled within one on Sullivan's second of the night.

The play started when Gluchowski backhanded a pass down the left half-wall for Jacob Pritchard who circled the zone before snapping off a shot from the top of the right circle. Sullivan, after fighting through a pair of defenders in front of the Clarkson net, tipped Pritchard's shot over Kielly's left shoulder to make it a 3-2 game at 13:43.

But with the Saints pressuring and trying to get netminder Arthur Brey to the bench for an extra attacker, they were assessed another minor penalty at 18:08 when Ben Finkelstein was sent off for a high stick in the offensive zone.

St. Lawrence did manage to get Brey to the bench to even up manpower with just over 30 seconds remaining, but Sturm found the empty net to ice the game for the Golden Knights.

Clarkson finished 2-for-8 on the power play, while the Saints were 0-for-5 on Saturday night.

Brey stopped 24 shots for St. Lawrence, while Kielly made 25 saves for Clarkson.

The Saints will next travel to take on Vermont and UMass Lowell in the Catamount Cup at the University of Vermont on December 29 and 30, respectively.