Three hundred and sixty five days since the Oswego State men’s hockey team’s 4-4 tie against now-No. 3 SUNY Geneseo at the Marano Campus Center—also the its senior night, recognizing their four seniors—the Lakers looked like they were going to send it to overtime again.

After going down 3-1 in the beginning of the third period to the Knights, Oswego State’s Max Novick and Michael Gillespie were able to tie the game up at three. Novick scored at 11:55, while Gillespie scored at 13:09 of the third period.

From the looks of things, it was going to be another SUNY Geneseo and Oswego State battle that would end up in overtime. It would have been the fourth overtime game since Jan. 21, 2017.

But after a Carson Vance tripping minor with 3:45 left in the third period, followed by constant pressure from SUNY Geneseo, defenseman Cam Russell scored the game-winning goal with just 1:29 remaining in regulation, putting the Knights up 4-3.

After some pressure from Oswego State in the last 89 seconds of the game, Conlan Keenan put the game out of reach with an empty-net goal at 19:22, sending Oswego State fans home for the night.

“I’m proud of our guys. We made mistakes and they capitalized on them,” Oswego State head coach Ed Gosek said. “Critical details, even off the draw, guys weren’t in the right spots and the puck gets by them. [Steven Kozikoski] doesn’t see it and it’s in.

“I thought we deserved a better outcome.”

Vance also scored for the Lakers in the second period on the power play after a pass from Anthony Passero. Vance found the inside of the net to the side of Aaron Mackay at 17:43 of the second period to make the game 2-1.

Kozikoski, in his fifth game of the season, made 26 saves in the loss. Three of the four goals that he let in were hard shots from the blue line from SUNY Geneseo’s defensemen. Oswego State threw 32 shots on net, while Mackay stopped 29 of them to propel his team to victory.

“I don’t know if I can fault Koz on any of the goals. He played a good game,” Gosek said. “He made some big saves, especially on the PK. I was pleased with his effort.”

With the loss, the No. 1 seed for the SUNYAC championships just seems that much farther away. The Knights now hold a five-point lead over Oswego State. Even though the Lakers have one game in-hand, if both teams win out the rest of their regular season conference schedules, SUNY Geneseo will still be ahead by three points.

The Lakers will now fight for the second seed to avoid having to play in the first round of the SUNYAC Championships. The second seed will give Oswego State a bye and send it straight to the semifinals on home ice.

But first, Oswego State has a two-game weekend on the road at Morrisville State on Friday and Saturday, with four more crucial league points on the line—now more than ever.

“Even though the outcome wasn’t what we wanted, I thought we were better tonight than we were against [The College at Brockport],” Gosek said. “We competed hard tonight. We’ll continue to build and get back at it on Tuesday. We’ll continue to play the game the right way and gain momentum.”

Photo by Ben Grieco | The Oswegonian