No. 13 SUNY Plattsburgh was able to come into the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena and take home the 2017 SUNYAC Championship with a 3-2 victory over the top-seeded Oswego State Lakers Saturday night. A pair of goals in the third period was too much for the Lakers to overcome, giving the Cardinals the their 23rd SUNYAC Championship in program history.

Oswego State dropped to 4-5-1 when allowing the first goal on the season, but did outshoot the Cardinals 33-23 through 60 minutes. This is the second time this year the

Cardinals were able to strike first and hold on to win while on the road against the Lakers. Brady Rouleau made 31 saves on the night, en route to grabbing tournament MVP honors. Matt Zawadzki ended his night with 20 saves and an .870 save percentage in the 3-2 loss.

“Disappointed in the outcome,” head coach Ed Gosek said postgame. “For whatever reason there wasn’t a lot of urgency there. Few shifts here and there throughout the game, but I thought Plattsburgh, they had that urgency. They were willing to do a lot of the little extra things.”

Oswego State’s power play, that was ranked fourth in the nation coming in, was not on the same page for a majority of the contest. That played a big part in the Lakers failing to beat the Cardinals on home ice yet again. They finished the night 1-6 with 10:37 worth of power play time and 7 seven shots, but allowed numerous shorthanded chances and struggled to enter the zone while a man up.

“For the most part, we just had trouble entering the zone,” senior forward Shawn Hulshof said. “I mean we’ve stuck to the same breakout all year, practiced it all week. We knew what Plattsburgh was going to do, just couldn’t solve it the first two periods. We wanted to try to carry it into the zone and set up, but whether Stephen Johnson gave it to me, or gave it to [Alex Botten] on the wall or [Kenny Neil] up the middle, there was always a guy on us and we didn’t adapt well to that.”

Two poor power play opportunities for Oswego State resulted in a scoreless first period for both teams. The Lakers gave up a few pucks on unforced turnovers in their own zone, but the Cardinals were not able to capitalize on those or some lucky bounces that came their way. The Lakers led 10-6 in shots and got a few pucks by Rouleau, but the post kept the game scoreless.

SUNY Plattsburgh scored first for the second-straight time in the season series. Schuyler Seyfert put a puck by a standing Zawadzki at 9:07 of the middle period to record the game’s first tally. Seyfert was able to get a stick on a bouncing puck before Johnson was able to do so to make it a 1-0 game. Jesse Neher and Nick Belger were credited with assists on this marker.

The Lakers again controlled the majority of the shot attempts after the second period ended, with a mark of 65.6 percent, but failed to capitalize. David Ferreira and Devin Campbell each hit a post and Neil and Botten created a pair of two-on-ones while shorthanded, but again, failed to beat Rouleau.

SUNY Plattsburgh extended its lead to two with a another goal just 2:37 into the third period, this time on the power play. Joe Drabin was behind Chris MacMillan in front of the crease when Evan Lindquist’s shot ricocheted off the end boards and to the left side of Zawadzki. Drabin was then able to bang the puck home to make it a 2-0 game.

Oswego State answered just 70 seconds after the Cardinals’ insurance marker. On the power play Matt Galati was able to put a one timer toward the net and Neil shoveled

the loose puck to Hulshof, who took a quick shot that beat Rouleau for his 13th goal of his senior campaign.

The Lakers were not able to get the game’s next goal, and Antoine Desnoyers scored the eventual game winner thanks to excellent movement through the neutral zone and into the Lakers’ end. Cole Stallard was set by up Kyle Hall, and Stallard put a backhand pass to the right of Zawadzki onto the tape of Desnoyers. Zawadzki was quick across the crease to try and glove the shot from the freshman but was not successful, allowing the Cardinals’ third goal at the 8:01 mark of the third period.

“There were spots in the game where they would hem us in our zone, which is fine,” Chris Raguseo said. “We keep them to the outside. We use the term ‘bend, don’t break,’ but off the rush, where they like to get most of their offense, they just got one more than we needed to keep out.”

Oswego State took a timeout with 1:18 left in regulation and pulled Zawadzki shortly after. With the extra attacker the Lakers were able to cut the deficit to one, but it was too little, too late.

Galati’s hard work to keep the play alive with two defenders on him paid off as he was falling to the ice. Hulshof was there to pick up the loose puck and turned quickly for a shot. His low shot was deflected by Neil at the 19:28 mark and made it 3-2 in the dying seconds. The Lakers had 32.2 seconds left to try and tie the game but failed. The puck escaped the Cardinals’ end with 7.5 seconds left in regulation to seal it.

“Credit to them, I thought they played extremely well and again were, for the second time in this building, opportunistic,” Gosek said.

SUNY Plattsburgh now has an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament after starting the season with a 6-8-0 record. The Lakers will have to wait until Monday morning at 10:30 a.m. to see if they have a place in the field. Oswego State was second in the east region in the latest set of regional rankings released by the NCAA and should be able to earn a spot in the tournament with a pool c bid, despite the loss.

“We’ve left it up to the hands of a committee to determine whether our body of work was good enough to continue on,” Gosek said.  “I hope for their sake that it is. I think we’re capable of playing better than we did tonight in lots of little areas. Hopefully we get a second chance.”