By Justin Rushia
The Plattsburgh State men’s hockey team’s wild playoff run came to an end in the SUNYAC championship game, where the Cards fell to the Oswego Lakers by a score of 5-2.
“We didn’t feel out of it despite the score,” senior forward Jagger Benson said. “I’d say 90% of that game we felt like we were in it and we had a chance.”
The Lakers (16-8-3, 9-4-1) came out firing, scoring a mere one minute and 32 seconds into the first period. Just 39 seconds later, Plattsburgh (16-11-1, 8-6) conceded its second goal of the game.
Oswego played a very fast style of hockey, trying to put constant pressure on its opponents. The Cardinals did their best to try and match the energy and speed of the Lakers.
“They always start hot in their rink. Every time we played them in Oswego, we tend to kind of get down early or have a quick one. It’s been a trend since I’ve been here, at least,” Benson said. “So our plan was to match their energy, if not come out even faster than them. Honestly, despite the score, I thought we did a good job of that.”
Right after the 13-minute mark of the game, Oswego scored two more goals within seven seconds, extending their lead to 4-0.
“One of our goals was to weather the first five minutes on them because we knew they’d come out strong,” junior forward Jake Sacratini said. “So it was kind of deflating, but I’m pretty proud of our group that we didn’t have any letdown when we did go down early.”
With less than a minute remaining in the period, Oswego added one more goal, bringing the score to 5-0 as they headed into the first intermission.
Despite the five-goal deficit, the Cardinals didn’t come out deflated in the second period.
Benson got one back for Plattsburgh twelve minutes into the second period. After the Oswego goalie made a save, the Cardinals fought to regain control of the puck in the crease. Junior forward Riley Sutherland cleared the puck out, allowing Benson to skate around from behind the net, knocking the puck off the right leg of the Oswego goalie and into the back of the net. This was Benson’s first goal of the season.
“For the first one, the message on the bench was, ‘Hey, one at a time. Let’s just keep going,’” Benson said. “I hadn’t scored a goal all regular season. So it showed it’s gonna take everyone and that anyone on this bench can contribute.”
With just 40 seconds left to play in the second period, Senior defenseman Jack Ring played a pass off the boards to Sutherland, who then found Benson skating across the midline into the Plattsburgh offensive zone. Benson blasted a shot that went past several Laker defenders and found the top shelf of the net, notching his second goal of the game.
The Cards showed, as they have all season, that they don’t have any quit in them.
In its first two rounds of the playoffs, Plattsburgh overcame a 3-0 deficit in both contests.
“Our team has been very resilient all year, and the attitude was great in the locker room,” head coach Steve Moffat said. “I told them we’re gonna have the best comeback in the history of hockey. Let’s just win this period, score two or three goals, and see what happens, and that’s what we did.”
Plattsburgh earned a power play early on into the third period, giving it another opportunity to score and chip away at the three-goal deficit. However, the team was not able to capitalize.
“It would have been nice if we just got one on the power play 15 seconds into the third because is we get that, now we have a lot of momentum. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that goal,” Moffat said.
Oswego did its best to clear the puck and kill time at every opportunity to prevent the Cards from earning more looks.
The Cardinals outshot the Lakers 10-5 in the final period, but the Oswego goalkeeper stopped all 10 shots.
Plattsburgh emptied its net to add an extra skater for the final three minutes, but they were unable to close the gap, ultimately losing 5-2.
“We couldn’t capitalize on anything. They did a good job of locking it down, clearing the puck, and keeping us to the outside,” Moffat said.
Sacratini was named to the All-Tournament team after scoring two goals and providing two assists during Plattsburgh’s first two games. Alongside him was junior defenseman Lonan Bulger, who recorded four points in the first-round win against Potsdam.
After capturing their first SUNYAC title since 2014, the Lakers will advance to the NCAA tournament where they will take on Trine University on Saturday.
Six Cardinals will graduate after this season: seniors Benson and Ring, goaltender Jacob Hearne, forward Jake Lanyi, defenseman Ryan Poorman, and graduate student defender Kevin Weaver-Vitale.
“We had a good group of guys come in here four years ago, and I think we changed the program,” Benson said. “We’ve made three SUNYAC finals in the past four years. That’s an accomplishment in itself, so I just don’t want that to go unnoticed.”
