(Canton, N.Y.)- The SUNY Canton men’s ice hockey team remained unbeaten as they ripped Mercyhurst College 6-1 Friday night at the Canton Pavilion.

Rob Liggio (Canton, N.Y.) scored his second hat trick in as many games helping the Roos improve to 3-0 in the Eastern Collegiate Hockey League and 4-0 overall.  The two teams meet again on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at the Pavilion.

Liggio got things rolling for the Roos on the opening shift of the game.   Just 13 seconds in he took a pass from Jeremiah Hardin (Alpharetta, Ga.) and wristed a shot into the upper left corner of the net.  John Payne (Port Moody, B.C.) also assisted on the goal.

The Roos took advantage of two Mercyhurst penalties midway through the first period to tack on two more goals.  

The first came when the Lakers were whistled for a holding penalty. Just 27 seconds into the penalty Chris Schmidbauer (San Diego, Calif.) took a nice feed from Darren Camp (Canton, N.Y.) from behind the net and slapped the puck into the open left side of the net.  The second goal came following a cross checking penalty and this time it took Adam Fedor (Orleans, Ontario) 14 seconds to make it 3-0.  Garrett Rosenbaum (Charleston, S.C.) and Brad Wilson (Orleans, Ontario) assisted on the goal.

The score held at 3-0 for almost all of the second period.  With 12 seconds left John Payne (Port Moody, B.C.) won an in-zone faceoff right back to Liggio at the top of the right face-off circle who wristed a hard shot through traffic for a 4-0 lead.

Liggio's final goal, shorthanded, came at the 3:09 mark of the third period to complete the hat trick.  Liggio beat two defenders along the left boards, fought to the middle and fired another hard wrist shot for his team-leading seventh goal of the year.

Eric Richard (St-Hubert, Quebec) then capped off the scoring netting his first collegiate goal with 6:37 left in the game.  The goal was an emotional and terrific moment as Richard recently returned to SUNY Canton and the team following the death of his father earlier this semester.

Senior goalie Jimmy Merrow (Plainsboro, N.Y.) improved to 3-0 as he stopped 16 of 17 shots.

Payne finished with three assists and now has a team-high eight for the year.  Wilson and Camp each had two assists and Schmidbauer had one.

Chris Mandia scored for the Lakers (2-1, 3-3) and Andrew Stanton had 19 saves.