The Oswego State Lakers defeated Elmira College 4-2 in tonight’s regular season opener at Marano Campus Center.

Josh Zizek’s hat-trick helped Oswego State win a game dominated by penalties. The Lakers went to the penalty box 10 times during the game and Elmira College went to the penalty box 11 times.

Elmira’s Jamie Dorsey started things off by going to the penalty box at 4:57 of the first period.

At 6:53, David Ferreira went to the box for the Lakers and soon after Devin Campbell joined him after a boarding penalty to give Elmira College a 5-3 powerplay.

Elmira took advantage as Nick Ford scored the game’s first goal on the 5-3 powerplay at 8:48 of the first period.

At 10:45 of the first, the Lakers were back in the box due to AJ D’Orazio’s holding penalty.

As soon as the Lakers returned to full strength, Anthony Parrucci put Elmira College up 2-0 at 12:51 of the first.

Josh Zizek scored the Lakers first goal of the game at 15:37 of the first, trimming Elmira’s lead to 2-1.

Less than two minutes later, Zizek scored his second goal of the night on the powerplay to tie the game at 2 with less than 3 minutes left in the period.

In the first period there were 7 combined penalties, 4 on Oswego State and 3 on Elmira College.

A minute into the second period Elmira’s Spencer MacLean went to the penalty box for hooking, but the Lakers couldn’t capitalize. Elmira committed three more penalties during the course of the second period, but Oswego couldn’t score on the powerplay.

The Lakers went to the box a total of 4 times in the second period as well. Elmira couldn’t capitalize on their powerplay opportunities either, wasting all four chances they had.

Two penalties committed by Elmira 4 minutes into the third period gave Oswego State a 5-3 powerplay opportunity.

After being in the penalty box twice earlier in the night, David Ferreira scored on the 5-3 advantage to give the Lakers a 3-2 lead at 5:38 of the third period.

David Blais committed his third penalty of the night and the Lakers made Elmira pay.

Josh Zizek scored his third goal of the night on the powerplay to give the Lakers a 4-2 lead with 7:38 remaining in the third.

The Lakers will be on the road against Hobart tomorrow afternoon at 4 PM.