The Saints got goals from Nicholas Beneteau in the first and Rasmus Svartström in the second, but the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team fell 4-2 on Friday night against Colgate at Appleton Arena.

St. Lawrence fell to 2-14-1 overall with the loss and 1-6-0 in ECAC play, while the Raiders improved to 6-9-2 and 4-2-1 in league play.  

Colgate found the scoreboard first in the contest at the 2:45 mark. Josh Niedermayer and Luke Malboeuf combined to get the puck around the Saints' net, where Bobby Metz came crashing and put the puck in to take the lead.

Moments later, it looked as if St. Lawrence had tied the game as Svartström dumped a puck in that took an odd bounce off the back wall to Cooper Pierson, who found Luke Santilli. The first-year buried the feed, but the goal was called back after a review for an offside.

The Scarlet and Brown kept battling and knotted the game at 7:09. Assistant captain Frankie Carogioiello caused a turnover at the Raiders' blue line, and it was picked up by Isaac Tremblay. The sophomore went in on a 2-on-1 and skipped a pass over to Beneteau, who tapped in the beautiful feed to tie the game at 1-1.

It looked as if the game was going to the intermission tied up, but Colgate was able to take a 2-1 lead with 13 seconds left in the first when Brett Merner found the back of the net.



The contest stayed at 2-1 until the last five minutes of the second, when the Saints once again tied the game up.

Tyler Cristall caused a Colgate turnover near the Saints' end and capitalized by finding Svartström, who was streaking down the middle of the ice. The first-year forward burnt a defender to go in on the breakaway, where he ripped a bar-down shot past Reid Dyck to make it 2-2.

Unfortunately for the Saints, the Raiders took the lead in short order, less than two minutes later. Easton Wainwright put a shot on goal that was stopped by Mason Kucenski. The rebound came out to Wainwright, who collided with a St. Lawrence defender, and the puck found its way in to give them a 3-2 lead going into the third.

The Scarlet and Brown had some quality chances to tie the game in the third period, but instead, Colgate went on the power play and wound up taking the two-goal lead. On the man advantage, Michael Neumeier's point shot went off of Ryan Sullivan and took a strange hop onto the stick of Isaiah Norlin, who tucked in the chance.

St. Lawrence pulled the goalie for the final 1:43 of the contest. Cayden Casey, Svartström, Filip Juříček, and Cristall all had chances, but the Saints couldn't close the gap.

Kucenski finished with 24 saves in goal, while Dyck came up with 25.

St. Lawrence had just one chance on the power play, going 0-for-1, while the Raiders went 1-for-3.

The Skating Saints will be back on the ice at Appleton tomorrow at 7 p.m. for a matchup against No. 16/17 Cornell. The game can be watched on ESPN+ and on SNY as one of the ECAC's Games of the Week.