The Adrian Bulldogs started off with three goals within the first 17 minutes in their rematch of the 2015 NCAA Quarterfinals against Oswego State and never looked back as they captured their first ever Pathfinder Bank Classic championship Sunday night with a 5-1 win.

Star sophomore Mathew Thompson, who collected a goal in Sunday’s game, won Tournament MVP for his performance against both Williams College and Oswego State. He was joined by freshman goaltender Kevin Entmaa, who is now 8-0-0 on the season, as members of the All-Tournament team.

Oswego State started off very flat, surrendering those three early goals with struggles on the defensive end and in the goal.

“We didn’t match their intensity,” Oswego’s head coach Ed Gosek said. “I thought we got pushed around; we played soft. They’re a very good team. They’re big, they’re strong and they play with an edge.”

Adrian plays in Michigan, notorious for their recruits’ size and strength, as the Bulldogs had 16 players on the ice Sunday who were at least 6’0″, compared to Oswego’s 11.

In these games between two national powerhouses, the game gets physical. 24 total penalties were called throughout the game, some that had both benches and the crowd very vocal toward the refs. During one instance, both Joey Davies and JJ Hart were sent to the box and the Lakers were forced to kill of a 5-3 Bulldog power play. Later in the third period, Matt Galati of the Lakers was called for a five-minute major when he hit a player form behind, but the decision was eventually made into a game misconduct and Galati had to leave the game.

“That’s a hard game to do,” Gosek said on the officiating. Despite his vocal outbreaks during the game, he sided with the refs on most of the calls. “Honestly, I thought they called it pretty well. Galati’s penalty at the end, that’s deserved. That’s just stupid. That’s not the type of toughness that we’re talking about. Physical play without incurring penalties, that’s toughness.”

While the Lakers were dealing with a deficit, they began to put added pressure on Adrian in the latter two periods, but had very little success scoring.

“In the second period, unfortunately, I thought we had nothing to show for it,” Gosek said. “[We] showed some spirit and showed some passion. We didn’t work hard enough to create traffic in front of their goalie and get those, hungry, hard-working goals that we’ve been talking about.”

A reason for the Lakers improved play was a result of Matt Zawadzki replacing Adrian Ignagni in the goal after the first period. Ignagni, who surrendered three goals in the first period, had a tough matchup against the No.1 scoring offense in Div. III.

“In fairness to him, the first two [goals] were just us getting pushed around in our own crease,” Gosek said. “They’ve got four guys down in there [the crease] and we’re just letting them stand there. The odds are it’s going to go in sooner or later. He’s fighting for his life.”

Adrian’s offense did not hold back from attacking Zawadzki, as he faced many difficult shots that came his way but made some flashy plays to hold the Bulldogs at three goals. However, late into the second period, Adrian had a few opportunities go in their favor as Trevor Boyd’s shot hit the bottom of the crossbar and the puck narrowly beat Zawadzki as it crossed the line. The next goal occurred when a big collision in front of net left Brett Pinkerton open where he beat Zawadzki five-hole to increase the lead to five goals.

Gosek says he will evaluate both goalies moving forward to decide who should get the nod as starter, especially with conference play returning within the next few weeks and described the goaltending situations this year as “a battle.”

Despite falling flat against one of the elites in the nation, Gosek thinks this will help the team down the road.

“This game will make us better,” he said. “Tonight I thought we had a lot of good looks. Their goalie was good, that kid stood on his head. We can say what we want but we had a lot of good opportunities on the power play that didn’t go in.”

With the loss tonight, it’s very unlikely that Oswego will win an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament if they don’t win the SUNYAC conference title. With loses to St. Michael’s and now Adrian, their non-conference resume is not the strongest. Although they do still play Nazareth College and Utica College twice, Utica has always given this team fits and will be a tough test for them moving forward.

The Lakers will go on the road to Utica on Jan. 15 and then play Nazareth on the road the following night as well , before hosting Utica Jan. 15, which will wrap up their winter break schedule.