The Oswego State Lakers gave up a pair of two-goal leads as the SUNY Plattsburgh Cardinals scored the final three goals of the night to win 5-4 in overtime Friday night, the third straight occurrence that the Lakers have not won on Whiteout against their rival. With the victory, the Cardinals advance to 4-0-0 (3-0-0 in SUNYAC play) and the Lakers fall to 1-2-1 (1-2-1).

The game-winning goal was scored by Cardinals’ forward Pat Egan 1:55 into overtime. Egan was left open right in front of the goal guarded by Matt Zawadzki, but was able to beat him to seal the win.

“They’re a good team, they pushed back when they could,” head coach Ed Gosek said. “They’ve got a lot of seniors that have been there. I thought we had a lot of good chances and I was proud of our guys’ effort. We made some mistakes and when we did, they capitalized.”

Gosek said the play broke down when junior captain Chris Raguseo lost containment on his guy and it resulted in a domino effect.

Raguseo pivoted the wrong way going down on the near side and fell behind his assignment. Fellow defenseman Sean Federow came over to cover for Raguseo but left his assignment open in the middle of the ice without anyone picking him up.

“If we’ve got freshman making those plays, I’m not worried,” Gosek said. “Juniors? They know better than that.”

That final goal was the fifth given up by the Lakers, on only 25 shots. Gosek thought that holding one of the best teams in Div. III to 25 shots, especially when they had five power plays, was worth noting. However, he believed that many of the shots given up were “a gift” from Oswego’s defense.

The Lakers took commanding control of the game, with a pair of goals within the first 1:10 and looked well on their way to a victory. The first goal was scored by sophomore Mitchell Herlihey just 44 seconds into regulation.

Alex D’Oliveira passed the puck to Shawn Hulshof who attacked Plattsburgh goalie Spencer Finney straight on and crashed the net. Hulshof couldn’t finish, but Herlihey came in and stuck the puck past Finney off the rebound to give his team the quick 1-0 lead.

Even before the goal could be announced, Oswego found the net again. This time Kenny Neil scored his third goal of the year to put the Lakers up 2-0.

However, history repeated itself again. After Friday night, the last three times the Lakers gave themselves a two-goal lead in the first period, they have lost.

Last season against SUNY Potsdam on Senior Day, Mike Montagna scored twice within the first period, but the Lakers surrendered four consecutive goals and lost 4-2.

Then earlier this season against the CCHL All-Graduate team in an exhibition matchup, this team once again found themselves up early with a 2-0 lead just over ten minutes into regulation. Once again, the team went on to lose, that game by a score of 6-3.

Plattsburgh defenseman Chris Taff put his team on the board with a goal 8:23 into the first period, cutting the lead in half.

Oswego would fall on the wrong side of luck at the end of the period as they almost tacked a goal on as time expired that would have given them their two-goal cushion back.

Raguseo got the puck at the point near the blue line and took a deep slap shot that Chris Waterstreet deflected into the net. However, the puck hit the net just after the buzzer rang ending the first and the momentum that they could have carried over to the second period disappeared in an instance.

The high-scoring second period saw Plattsburgh tie it up with a quick goal by senior Kevin Emmerling, only to see it return two a two-goal deficit as both Alex Botten and Matt Galati extended the Lakers lead heading into the final period.

The notorious two-goal cushion would not stay long though, as the Cardinals crawled their way back into their game in the third period.

“I thought we started off the third period just flat,” Gosek said.

With the Lakers’ struggles at the end of games after starting off strong, the question of team conditioning comes into play and how their endurance affects them during the game.

Gosek said that conditioning was an issue during exhibition matchup, but not tonight. He said that the only problem in that aspect of his players becoming fatigued would be from a lack of discipline on line changes.

Connor Gorman of Plattsburgh scored 26 seconds into the third period instantly deflating the Lakers’ high hopes of a victory and silencing the crowd of 3,000 people.

Dillan Fox tied it up just over five minutes later and just like that the lead the Lakers had was once again gone.

“They’re a senior-leaded team, they don’t panic,” Gosek said. “The mistakes we made in both situations let them get back into the game. I know they were pressuring us, but it was more self-inflicted.”

The momentum was almost entirely on Plattsburgh’s side as the two teams prepared for what was the third straight overtime when this rivalry is played at the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena.

However, unlike the previous two ties, the Cardinals put the game away with the finishing goal to give the Lakers a losing record heading into their game against 5-0 Potsdam, who is one of the surprises this year in the SUNYAC.

“They [Potsdam] are playing with confidence, ours is a little shaky right now,” he said,

One of the bigger storylines of the game were the penalties that Oswego drew that lead Plattsburgh going to five power plays, as opposed to the one man-up advantage the Lakers were given.

The crowd, especially, was very upset with some of the calls that seemed to go in favor of the Cardinals.

A couple, that went on freshman Cameron Berry and junior Chris Waterstreet, were both called after what looked like penalties that could have been called on the Cardinals. Both Berry and Waterstreet’s penalties were whistled on their reactions to Plattsburgh’s actions and many thought that Plattsburgh got away with penalties that were than enforced on Oswego.

“I thought they could have called both [penalties on Plattsubrgh],” Gosek mentioned, “He could have called it, but he didn’t call it. It certainly didn’t help us, but the referees had no bearing [on the game].”

“Everybody played well,” Gosek said. “We had guys that made individual mistakes that cost us goals. I don’t even know if I can their goalie was better than ours. I thought both let in some [goals] that were weak. I didn’t think either goalie was great. They were both just OK. I thought there were a lot of weak goals for both teams.”

Despite the loss, Gosek remains optimistic of his team’s progression from the preseason to this point of the schedule.

“We’re playing better hockey,” he said. “I didn’t feel like we were outplayed tonight.”

Moving forward, Gosek described his team as “long-term greedy” and said there are no excuses for his team to not continue to improve and compete at a higher level.

There is no other way than to work through it,” he said. “You keep working and play smart, simple hockey and work yourself out of it.”

Oswego hosts Potsdam Saturday night in hopes to avoid falling two games under .500 and potentially out of the top-15 in the nation in the rankings.

As mentioned, the Lakers blew a lead to Potsdam last winter, the night after a tie to Plattsburgh on Whiteout.

That loss would cost the Lakers home-ice advantage in the SUNYAC playoffs where they would eventually fall to the Cardinals in the finals in Plattsburgh.

“In our league, you’ve got to come prepared to battle every night,” Gosek said.

Puck drop will be at 7 p.m. in the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena.