Feb. 24, 2008

Rye, NY -

Box Score

The Knights looked to finish the regular season with a sweep of the Valiants after winning the first two games of the series. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the seniors of Manhattanville. After jumping out to a 1-0 lead in the first, the Knights fell behind 3-2 before losing 7-3.

Junior Kyle Casey opened up the scoring for the game as the Knights scored on a power play goal. The junior from Stratford, Ontario took a pass from senior captain Mike Gooch and senior Mark Van Vliet to put the Knights up early in the game.

Neumann's lead was short lived, however, as Manhattanville scored the next three goals, two of them in the first period to take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission. Chris Trafford and Zeke Hume were able to sneak a shot pass senior goalie Mike Collichio to give the Valiants the lead. Trafford's goal was a power play goal for Manhattanville after junior Donovan Hall had been called for boarding.

The third goal for Manhattanville was scored thirty-two seconds into the second period as the Valiants Mike Ruberto slipped a shot by Collichio to make it 3-1. The rest of the second stanza was a battle of wills as both teams traded a series of penalties. Neither team was able to capitalize as the second period ended 3-1 in favor of Manhattanville.

In the final period the Knights struck back behind junior Erik Stoyanvich. Stoyanvich received passes from Mike Gooch and Charles Patterson to finish the play and bring Neumann back to within 1 goal. But once again, just a short time after Neumann had begun to make their run the Valiants were able to slow the Knights' attack and scored again to take a two goal lead early in the third stanza, 4-2. And just as quickly as it was 4-2 it became 5-2 as Manhattanville's Jason Murfitt was able to score both of the Valiants' goals. Senior Mark Van Vliet was able to bring the Knights back to within 5-3 with his first goal of the game but Manhattanville snuffed out any more runs by the Knights and by adding two more goals for the 7-3 victory.

The Knights finish the ECAC West regular season 8-7 and 17-8 overall while Manhattanville finishes 8-5-2 in conference play and 16-6-3 overall. Both teams advance to the ECAC West playoffs and will wait for the brackets to be announced later on Sunday, February 24, 2008.