Oswego Men's Hockey Cruise Past Mustangs

In a rare weekend series, the Oswego State Men's Hockey team took their show on the road again, this time for a pair of games at the IcePlex in Morrisville to take on the Morrisville Mustangs. Normally during the regular season, the teams play twice, once in Morrisville and once in Oswego. Also normally the games are split up, one game in the first half of the season and one in the second half. But this year both games were played in Morrisville and both games played in consecutive days. Coming into the weekend, Oswego had lost once to Morrisville, something that the Lakers would not want to do again. Oswego dominated both games, coming away from the weekend with a pair of wins.

In the first game Friday night, Oswego's offense exploded for nine goals in a 9-2 routing of the Mustangs. Sure Morrisville got a pair of goals from Jordan Carvalho (his 6th and 7th of the year) in the 2nd period, but that was all the offense the Mustangs could muster. Oswego scored twice in the 1st period, once from David Titanic (5th of the year) and then again from Nick Rivait (3rd of the year) on the powerplay. The Laker offense stepped it up in the 2nd period, scoring six times. The goals came from Mike Montagna (6th), Matt Galati (17th), Titanic again (6th), Stephen Johnson (4th), Dylan Smith (6th) and Krystian Yorke's 1st career goal. Kenny Neil capped off the scoring in the 3rd period with his 11th of the year.

Jakob Rasmussen took the loss for Morrisville, dropping his record to 2-4-1 on the year, as he stopped 18 shots and gave up 4 goals. Christopher Azzano came in in relief, stopping 18 shots and giving up 5 goals. Justin Gilbert got the win for Oswego, improving his record to 6-2-0, as he stopped 13 of the 15 shots he faced. During the game, a few Lakers had big games offensively, including David Titanic (2G), Dylan Smith (1G 1A), Krystian Yorke (1G 1A), Kenny Neil (1G 1A) and Mike Montagna (1G 4A).

Saturday night the two teams were back at it again, from the exact same location as the night before. The end result was the exact same as the night before, but how they got there was a little different. Jordan Carvalho got Morrisville on the board first, with his 8th of the year and 3rd in two nights, just 28 seconds into the hockey game. David Titanic got Oswego even at the 10:46 mark, with his 7th of the year. Morrisville would take the lead at the 17:06 mark when Matthew Beer scored his 7th of the year. Morrisville would carry that lead into the break. Both clubs would trade goals in the 2nd period, Joe Santino scoring his 5th for Morrisville and Shawn Hulshof scoring his 7th for Oswego. So heading into the 3rd period, the Lakers found themselves still down a goal. A three goal outburst in the 3rd from Oswego sealed the Mustangs fate. It took all of 55 seconds for the Lakers to pull even, thanks to Kenny Neil's 12th of the year. Oswego would take the lead at the 6:55 mark Alex Botten connected for his 5th of the season. Oswego put the game away at the 12:50 mark when Brandon Adams scored his 8th of the year. Christopher Azzano Oswego held on for the 5-3 victory.

Christopher Azzano took the loss for Morrisville, dropping his record to 3-11-0, stopping 45 of the 50 shots he faced. Matt Zawadzki got the start for Oswego but was pulled after allowing 3 goals on 9 shots. So Justin Gilbert came in in relief and got the win, improving his record to 7-2-0, as he stopped the 13 shots he faced.

Oswego heads home for the final home games of the regular season this weekend. The Lakers play host to Brockport on Friday February 14th and Geneseo Saturday February 15th as it is senior weekend!

(Photo provided by Oswego State Athletics)