The No. 3 Oswego State Lakers were able to easily handle the College at Brockport Golden Eagles with a 10-1 win in the first SUNYAC meeting of the spring semester. This nine-goal victory puts the Lakers at 14-3-0 on the season, and matches their win total from all of last year on Jan. 20. It took Oswego State until the first round of the SUNYAC playoffs to reach 14 wins last year.

A quick start opened the floodgates for the Lakers, and head coach Ed Gosek was able to get his lineup to not take their foot off the gas pedal.

A blatant trip sent TJ Sneath to the box just 2:27 into the opening period. This put the 17th-ranked power play in the nation to work early. A quick goal would have given Brockport some momentum that could have changed the course of this game from the onset.

But with 10 seconds gone in the penalty kill, Mithell Herlihey was able to move past the Laker bench and down the near-side wing until he got enough space to go in alone on Matt Schneider, Brockport’s starting goaltender. Herlihey was able to draw out Schneider and beat him with a quick deke to open the scoring at 2:37 of the opening frame.

“At that point in the game, [Herlihey] puts them back on their heels a little bit,” Gosek said postgame. “We get some momentum off of it. The bench feeds off of it, and it kind of ignited us and got it going.”

Chris Waterstreet, Matt Galati, TJ Sneath, Andrew Barton, Joey Davies and Joey Scorpio would also tally goals for the Lakers. Scorpio scored his first and second goals of his Laker career in tonight’s rout, while Davies also tallied two goals on the night.

Schneider was pulled from the game after allowing four goals on 13 shots in the first period. Jake Moore would replace him and make 22 saves on 28 shots in 40 minutes.

Brockport was finally able to answer at 13:08 of the third period to somewhat stop the bleeding in the third period that the Lakers were mostly concerned with getting out of fully healthy. Luke Bennett would score the second of three shorthanded markers on the night — Davies had the third — at the 13:08 mark of the final period of regulation.

“Then, the third period, just trying to get through it and not develop the bad habits,” Gosek said. “It’s human nature, at any level it’s going to happen, and I can’t say there a lot of bad habits other than holding onto the puck too long and trying to do too much. I thought we just could’ve moved [the puck] much quicker and effectively, but that’s going to happen.”

Oswego State was able to win both the faceoff and shot battle mightily in tonight’s game. Waterstreet continued to impress at the faceoff dot, winning 11 of 14 draws throughout the course of the game. The Lakers were able to win a total of 42 draws to Brockport’s 28 and also led 41-16 in shots at the end of regulation.

Tonight’s 10 goals marks the highest goal total of the season, and the most since Nov. 1, 2014 in a 10-2 win over SUNY Fredonia.

The Lakers will now travel to take on the No. 5/6 SUNY Geneseo Ice Knights on Saturday at 7 p.m. This will serve as the rematch of this season’s first tilt where Oswego State was able to mount a comeback and tally four goals in the third period against the then No. 4 team in Div. III hockey.