A tough stretch of play midway through the first period put the Clarkson University Hockey team in a hole it could not climb out of and led to a 4-2 loss at Colgate University in ECAC Hockey play at Starr Rink in Hamilton, NY on Saturday night.

The Golden Knights, who have lost four in a row, fall to 12-13-2 overall and are in eighth place in the ECAC Hockey standings with a 6-8-1 conference mark. The Green and Gold fell 5-2 at Cornell on Friday.

Colgate (4-22-1, 1-13-2), which won its first league game of the season, jumped on top 2-0 midway through the first with a pair of goals 1:38 apart. The Knights, who were called for three consecutive penalties in the first, killed off a 5-on-3 Raider man-advantage, but shortly after that Colgate went on its third power play, and made it pay off with Kurtis Bartliff’s goal at 10:09. Bartliff scored again at 11:47 to give the home team a two-goal cushion after the opening 20 minutes.

Just 37 seconds into the middle frame, Francois Brisebois scored an unassisted marker to put Colgate on top 3-0.

At 12:25, the Knights got on the scoreboard when senior Brandon DeFazio (Oakville, ONT) stole the puck off the Colgate goaltender’s stick behind the net and stuffed in a wraparound before the netminder could recover for his team-high 11th goal of the season, making it 3-1 after two periods.

Late in the third, Clarkson made it a one-goal game with freshman Allan McPherson’s (Kinburn, ONT) extra attacker goal at 17:56. The Knights gained possession of the puck after the ensuing faceoff and pull junior goaltender Paul Karpowich (Thunder Bay, ONT) again for the extra attacker, but the Raiders regained possession and sealed their first win since early December with an empty-net goal by Matt Firman with 18 seconds remaining.

Colgate, which was 1-of-8 on the power play, outshot the Knights 39-27. Karpowich posted 35 saves. Clarkson was 0-of-4 with the man-advantage.