Juniors Drake Burgin and Ty Naaykens scored in the first and Felikss Gavars scored in the second, but a three-goal third period from the opposition sent the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team to a 6-3 loss to RPI at the Houston Field House on Friday night in Troy, N.Y.

St. Lawrence fell to 5-12-2 on the year and 3-4-0 in ECAC play, while the Engineers improved to 7-12-1 and 4-5-0 in league play.

Midway through the first period, the Scarlet and Brown jumped onto the scoreboard capitalizing on an RPI turnover. A pair of Engineer defenders ran into each other at the blueline leaving Burgin on a breakaway. The blueliner buried a shot under the glove of Jack Watson to take the lead.

Less than five minutes later, a Saint penalty put RPI on the man-advantage but would give up a goal in the opening minutes. The opening faceoff of the power play was won by RPI but was stolen by Naaykens, who went in on a 2-on-1 with Josh Boyer. The winger wired home a wrist shot over the glove of Watson to extend the lead to 2-0.



The Engineers, however, would head back to work on the power play where CJ Regula would get a goal to cut the Saint lead in half.

RPI would hold onto momentum early in the second getting goals from Brad McNeil and John Evans in the opening 2:41 to take a 3-2 lead.

Later in the second period, the Scarlet and Brown went on the power play and would cash in to tie the contest. Senior captain Justin Paul was fighting for a puck in the corner and skipped a pass up to Luc Salem, who dished the puck to Gavars. The sophomore sniper rifled a wrist shot high over the shoulder of Watson for his ninth goal of the season and a tie game.

Bad puck luck would befall the Saints in the second period as back-to-back goals went in off St. Lawrence defenders. At 6:45 of the third, Sutter Mazzatti had the puck poked off his stick but went over the head of Ben Kraws and in, then moments later John Beaton sent a centering pass off a skate and in to give RPI the 5-3 lead.

St. Lawrence continued to get pucks to Watson and generated planet of scoring chances. Max Dorrington would get the best of the bunch as he was sprung for a breakaway that was turned aside by the RPI goalie.

The Engineers would seal the game with an empty-net goal in the win.

Kraws stopped 19 shots in net, while Watson came up with 28.

St. Lawrence scored twice in special teams with the shorthanded goal and a 1-for-2 mark on the power play, while the Engineers scored once on three man-advantages.

The Scarlet and Brown will head to Messa Rink in Schenectady tomorrow to take on Union in a 4:00 p.m. tilt.