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Tigers skate away with title

The Princeton Tigers celebrate with the Whitelaw Cup following their 2-1 overtime victory over Clarkson Saturday in the ECAC championship game in Lake Placid. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

LAKE PLACID — A seventh seed, no problem.

Over the past two weekends, Princeton’s men’s hockey hockey team picked off the second, first and third seeds in order to claim the ECAC championship. The seventh-seeded Tigers completed the impressive run to their first title in 10 years with a 2-1 overtime victory over Clarkson in the ECAC tournament’s final Saturday in front of an announced crowd of 5,950 at the Olympic Center’s 1980 Herb Brooks Arena.

The Tigers were just seconds away from claiming the crown in regulation, but a goal by Clarkson’s Josh Dickinson with 6.4 seconds left in the third period deadlocked the contest at 1-1 and sent the game into sudden-death, much to the delight of the overwhelmingly green-and-gold clad fans that had traveled to Lake Placid.

But shortly after overtime started, Princeton senior Max Becker silenced the Golden Knights’ faithful by putting the winning shot past Clarkson goalie Jake Kielly with 2:37 gone in the extra period. Becker netted the game-winner from the doorstep after collecting a pass from Jeremy Germain, who joins Becker and Liam Grand on Princeton’s third line.

“Germain made a great play going around the net, just left it for me and I took a whack at it and I took a second one and it went in. I can’t really explain anything after that,” Becker said describing his game-winner. “It’s incredible to share this with all my teammates and this special group of guys.”

Princeton goalie Ryan Ferland watches as a puck slides just wide of the net while Clarkson’s Josh Dickinson applies pressure and Joey Fallon defends for the Tigers during the second period of Saturday’s ECAC championship game at the Olympic Center. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

“I actually didn’t see the play,” said defenseman Josh Teves, who scored Princeton’s first goal late in the first period. “I just saw the guys jumping over the boards and that’s all I needed to see to know we won.”

When Becker, a third-line forward from Orange, California joined Princeton as a freshman, the Tigers were a three-win team at the bottom of the ECAC standings and were entering their first season under head coach Ron Fogarty. Princeton only notched five victories the following winter, but now, two years later, the Tigers are the conference champions on their way to the NCAA Division I tournament.

“The coaching staff and the older guys on the team, we’ve been through a lot the last four years,” Becker said responding to how his team felt about giving up the tying tally when the Tigers were on the verge of clinching in regulation. “We’ve been able to take experiences like that and turn them into references, and we’ve been able to move through moments like that. We do a pretty good job remaining poised and in control, especially in the face of adversity like that.

“We never wavered,” Becker continued. “Even though they scored with six seconds left, we came back into the locker room saying ‘We still have this.’ We just played our game.”

Scoring chances on the part of both teams were hard to come by early on, and Princeton cashed in on one when Teves scored with 3:17 remaining in the first period when he took a pass from Ryan Kuffner for a 1-0 Princeton edge. Junior Max Veronneau also assisted on the play, and set a school record in the process of 55 points during a single season.

The teams then played scoreless hockey the rest of the way until Clarkson finally got the break it needed late in regulation. With just over two minutes remaining, the Golden Knights had a great opportunity to deadlock the game after they went on the man-advantage, and by pulling Kielly from the net, they had a 6-on-4 edge in skaters. Princeton killed off the penalty, but Clarkson came through with its back to the wall when Dickinson scored with 6.4 seconds on the clock. On the play, the Golden Knights won a faceoff in Princeton’s end of the rink, Dickinson worked his way onto the doorstep and was able to deflect a puck that was thrown at the net past Tigers freshman goaltender Ryan Ferland.

As soon as Dickinson scored, Clarkson’s fans went wild and the Golden Knights were heading to overtime for the second time in as many nights after taking down Harvard 5-4 on Friday in the semifinal round.

Clarkson’s hopes for its first ECAC title in 11 years, however, was short-lived as Becker and his teammates came through after they started the overtime with loads of pressure and never relented.

“We were playing in a prevent defense in the third period,” Fogarty said. “In overtime, we went back to our game plan. I think we had five shots. Giving up a goal like that with six seconds left is tough. We just went around the (locker) room saying ‘Who’s going to score that winning goal.’ We didn’t say Becker, so I think he went in with a chip on his shoulder and scored. I didn’t see Max’s goal. I was ready to go with the next line, every one jumped, and I jumped as well too.”

Clarkson out shot Princeton 32-23. Kielly made 21 saves in goal for the Golden Knights and Ferland recorded 31 stops between the pipes for Princeton on his way to being named the championships most valuable player.

The Tigers are the only team to ever win the ECAC’s coveted Whitelaw Cup as a seventh seed, and they’ve done it twice. In a historic twist, they won as the seventh seed 20 years ago in Lake Placid, also beating Clarkson in overtime by a 5-4 score.

The Tigers took down second-seed Union in a two-game quarterfinal sweep to reach Lake Placid, and then topped top-seed Cornell 4-1 in Friday’s semifinal to get to the championship game.

Princeton improved to 19-12-4 with the victory and clinched an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Defeating Clarkson was the only way the Tigers would have advanced, and they will play on Saturday against Ohio State in the Midwest Regional in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Despite losses over the weekend in Lake Placid, Cornell and Clarkson are still alive, which puts three ECAC teams in the NCAA tournament. The Big Red are 25-5-4 and the top seed in the North East Regional, where they will take on Boston University. Clarkson fell to 23-10-6 and takes on Providence in the East Regional.

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