The nationally-ranked Oswego State men's ice hockey team closed out its final road trip of the regular season with a 4-1 victory at Brockport on Saturday night. A night after clinching its second-straight SUNYAC regular season title, the Lakers showed no signs of slowing down, improving to an unbeaten 13-0-1 in the league and 18-3-2 overall. Brockport is now 11-12-1 on the year and 5-9-1 in conference play.
Oswego – ranked fourth in both national polls this week – scored twice in the first period and never looked back. The Lakers and Golden Eagles traded goals in the middle stanza before Oswego tacked on its fourth and final goal in the third.
As has been the story lately, David Richer stood tall in net for Oswego, improving his nation-leading goals-against average by surrendering just one tally (on a man-down situation) while stopping 33 shots, just three shy of his career-high.
The Lakers used balance scoring on the night as Mitch Herlihey, Josh Zizek, Cameron Berry and Mitch Emerson each notched a tally. Oswego's top line of Herlihey, Zizek and Michael Gillespie accounted for the squads first two scores. Herlihey four the back of the net first at 3:28 of the opening 20 minutes, with both linemates earning an assist. Slightly more than three minutes later, Gillespie earned his second assist of the night, finding Zizek this time for a goal.
In the second, Emerson made it 3-0 off a helper from Aaron Huffnagle just 1:23 into the period. Brockport pulled to within two before the end of the period but would never get any closer as Cameron Berry scored an unassisted shorthanded goal with 1:30 remaining in regulation to ice the contest. It is Berry's second shorty in the last six games, which is good for a spot in the top-10 for that category in all of Division III.
Oswego will now close out its regular season with the annual Whiteout Weekend, hosting Potsdam at 7 p.m. on Friday and archrival Plattsburgh at the same time on Saturday.
