Senior captain Aaron Bogosian scored just 29 seconds into overtime as St. Lawrence University's hockey team started a eight-game January road trip on the right note with a 2-1 win over the University of New Hampshire, the nation's second-ranked team in Durham.
The Saints, now 5-8-3 overall, handed UNH its first loss in eight games this season at home and snapped a five-game New Hampshire unbeaten streak as the Wildcats fell to 10-3-4 on the season.
"That was a tremendous hockey game," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "I thought we played the best we have all season, pretty much from start to finish and in all aspects of the game. UNH is a great hockey team and this is a very difficult building to win in, so it took a special kind of performance to come away with the win."
The game got off to a fast start with four shots on goal in the first 30 seconds, and while the shot count settled down, the pace of the action didn't as both teams created some quality scoring chances in a fast-moving first 20 minutes. The Saints took the play to the Wildcats from the mid-point of the period on and had trio of great chances with Bogosian foiled twice from close range by UNH goalie Matt DiGirolamo and Pat Raley stopped at the post on a three-on-two shorthanded bid with just over four minutes to go in the period.
The Saints grabbed the lead 4:42 into the second period as junior center Mark Armstrong took a breakout pass from freshman defenseman Pat Raley and gunned a hard shot from the top of the faceoff circle which deflected into the goal off the crossbar for his first goal of the season.
The Wildcats had several chances to pull even, including 42 seconds of five-on-three power play, but Weninger and the Saint defense kept them off the board with a solid penalty kill. Weninger also came up big on UNH captain Mike Sislo, robbing him from point blank range with 2:35 to play in the second period.
The Wildcats came up empty on a trio of power plays to start the third period, but finally pulled even with 5:07 to play when sophomore John Henrion came out of the corner and sent one inside the far post on a two-on-one after the puck was kept in at the blue line.
St. Lawrence appeared to have taken the lead with 15.8 seconds to go when Bogosian circled behind the net, came out in front and sent a hard shot along the ice which went between the pads of DiGiorlamo. The puck trickled through and Carey tucked the rebound in, but the Hockey East officiating crew ruled that the whistle had blown before it came through the goalie's pads.
The Saints shrugged that off on their first rush of the overtime period as Carey broke up a UNH rush at the Saint defensive blue line and sent Bogosian away. Bogosian unleashed a bomb from the top of the faceoff circle in the UNH end with the puck going off the top of DiGiolrlamo's pad, hitting his stick and then falling behind him before Bogosian got to it again and tapped it in to win the game.
"I thought we showed a lot of poise in that we didn't get down when they scored to tie it, and didn't get down again when they waved off the apparent late goal," Marsh added. "Matt Weninger played a tremendous game in goal and Bogo came through with the big play to win it for us."
DiGirolamo finished with 28 saves for the Wildcats and Weninger had 32 for the Saints, who beat UNH for the third straight time and for the second time in their last two visits to the spacious Whittemore Center.
