Playing one of its best games of the season, the Clarkson University Hockey team picked up a key point in ECAC Hockey play, battling back to gain a 1-1 overtime tie against 12th-ranked Cornell before a crowd of 2,690 on Friday night at Cheel Arena.

Senior Nick Tremblay (Candiac, QUE) came through with the tying goal late in regulation and classmate Paul Karpowich (Thunder Bay, ONT) posted 27 saves in goal as the Golden Knights remained close in a race for a top-four showing in the ECAC standings.

With the tie, Clarkson posts an 8-7-4 league mark, tied with Quinnipiac for fifth in the standings. With three games remaining in the regular season the Knights are one point behind fourth-place Harvard and one point ahead of St. Lawrence in seventh. Overall, the Green and Gold, who host Colgate on Saturday in the final regular season game at Cheel, stand at 14-13-6.

In an evenly played game between two long-time rivals, Cornell (13-6-7, 10-3-6) held a slight 28-25 edge in shots. Clarkson was 1-of-3 on the power play and killed off four Big Red man-advantage opportunities.

The lone power-play goal of the night came off the stick of Clarkson’s leading goal scorer at 13:26 of the third period. With just two seconds left in a man-advantage, the Knights tied it up when Tremblay picked up a rebound off a shot by senior linemate Louke Oakley (Whitby, ONT) and fired in his team-high 15th goal of the season on a shot from the bottom of the right circle. Sophomore Ben Sexton (Kanata, ONT) started the play to earn an assist and extend his point streak to six games (1-9).

After a scoreless first period, Cornell took the initial lead early in the middle frame. The Big Red’s leading scorer, Greg Miller tapped in a shot at the top of the crease at 5:18 after a pass from the right circle by Dustin Mowrey. Keir Ross also assisted.

Karpowich, who has allowed only one goal against the nationally-ranked Big Red this season, while backboning the Knights to a pair of ties against Cornell, was strong throughout the contest and finished with 10 third-period stops and made the only save in the extra session.

Andy Iles posted 24 saves for Cornell, which extended its unbeaten streak over the Knights to nine games (6-0-3).