The Whiteout Weekend curse continued tonight as Plattsburgh State walked out of the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena with a 1-0 win over No. 3/4 Oswego State, who were shut out for the second consecutive night.

With the win, Plattsburgh State improves to 9-5-2 all time in Whiteout games, which have been played since Feb. 10, 2007. This win also makes the current senior class for Oswego State the second in a row to never beat the Cardinals on home ice.

Liam Lawson played hero tonight for the visiting Cardinals, who locked up the fourth seed in the conference playoffs with the win, by scoring with just 3:13 remaining to break the scoreless tie.

“We’re very fortunate our goalie came up big, our goalies have been getting better as the year’s gone on,” Plattsburgh State head coach Bob Emery said. “I thought ‘What better time to play your best game of the year?'”

Other than Lawson’s goal, which was a wrist shot from the top of the circle that just managed to dip enough to handcuff Oswego State goaltender David Richer, the Cardinals were not able to muster much offense.

With just 10 shots on the night, Plattsburgh State followed the winning blueprint given to them last night by fellow North Country team SUNY Potsdam: Get severely outshot and score a fluke goal.

Over two games this weekend, Oswego State outshot their opponents by a total of 77-30 and lost both games. This brutal scoring slump can be traced back to a few things, but it is something that Lakers head coach Ed Gosek and his team must solve before they begin their playoff journey next weekend.

Following Brendan McMeninmen’s 42 save shut out last night, Jimmy Poreda stepped in the visitors crease tonight and stopped all 35 shots that Oswego State threw at him.

“Both goalies on both nights played extremely well,” Gosek said.

The most noticeable difference for Oswego State has been the inability to score on the man advantage, as their power play unit has gone scoreless in their last 16 tries since the Feb. 9 4-2 win over SUNY Geneseo.

“That was the difference in the game,” Gosek said. “We have opportunities. The bottom line is pucks haven’t dropped and you just gotta work through it. It’s a clean slate now.”

That clean slate Gosek was referring to is the SUNYAC playoffs, which begin on Wednesday, Feb. 21. Since the Lakers clinched the top seed, they will be awaiting the lowest seed from the week day match ups next Saturday at the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena.

In the next week, both Plattsburgh State and Oswego State will be looking to refocus and doing everything they can to win a SUNYAC title.

“I’m just focused on being a better hockey team this week than we were this weekend,” Emery said.

Emery’s Cardinals, who now will host SUNY Fredonia at the Ronald B. Stafford Ice Arena on Feb. 21, have been trending positively in the second half of the season.

Following a 5-7-0 start, the Cardinals have gone 8-4-1, which is eerily similar to the path they took last season on their way to a SUNYAC championship win and a bid to the NCAA tournament.

Before Plattsburgh State thinks about defending their conference title, Emery wants his team to focus on the one thing that could be their Achilles heel, which is taking unnecessary penalties.

“I’m really happy we got the win here, but I’m really ticked off at how many penalties we took,” Emery said. “It is really out of character for Bob Emery coached Plattsburgh teams.”

Plattsburgh State took six penalties tonight, and were only saved by the inability of Oswego State to convert when they had chances.

With just 29 seconds remaining in the first period, Ross Sloan hit Lakers forward Cam Berry right in the numbers to earn himself a five minute boarding major heading into the first four and a half minutes of the second stanza.

The Lakers had six of their 14 second period shots on goal during the power play, but could not convert because of poor shot selection from their forwards. Missing the net and holding on to the puck too long in the slot were themes for the Oswego State power play unit throughout the night.

Gosek was not upset with his teams effort, but acknowledged the fact that his team needs to play better in big atmosphere games like the one they participated in tonight.

“We played well,” Gosek said. “We didn’t play well enough. They found a way. Credit to them.”

The play on the ice was not the only thing Gosek complimented about Plattsburgh State tonight. During warm ups, the Cardinals wore a teal ribbon on the front of their jerseys and ‘Mary Gosek’ on the back with the number 1 as a tribute to Ed’s late wife who passed away in June 2017 from ovarian cancer.

“I knew nothing about it,” Gosek said. “It was very nice of them. There’s an awful lot of good people in hockey.”

Moving forward, the Lakers will try and regain their scoring touch as they begin their playoff run and win the SUNYAC title that has evaded them since the 2013-14 season.