Plattsburgh, NY – The EC Men's Hockey Team appeared poised to be an even match for eleventh-ranked Amherst College, but the Lord Jeffs scored three unanswered goals to prevail 5-1  in the opening game of the 2012 Buck Supply and Hynes Electric Cardinal Classic Tournament at the Stafford Ice Arena. The Lord Jeffs improve to 6-3-1 overall, while the Soaring Eagles fall to 5-7-0 overall.

The Soaring Eagles carried much of the play through the first six minutes before Amherst's Brian Safstrom tapped the puck past EC goaltender Darren MacDonald '13 at the 7:44 mark of the first period to give the Lord Jeffs a 1-0 lead. Topher Flanagan took a feed from Nick Brunette just 1:06 later to make it 2-0 in favor of Amherst.

Elmira came within one at 12:49 when Mark Morikawa '13 buried a give-and-go with Brian Depp '16 to make it 2-1 after one period. Johnny Van Siclen tallied his sixth of the year on an Amherst power-play at 8:02 of the middle stanza with a setup from Mike Moher and Conor Brown. Thirty-two seconds later, Dylan Trumble deflected James Hawkrigg's shot from the blue line to put the Lord Jeffs up 4-1.

Daniel Merenich added an insurance goal at 10:22 of the third to round of the scoring for the afternoon matchup.
Amherst held a 39-32 advantage in shots on goal, while going 1-for-3 on the power play. Elmira went 0-for-3 with the man advantage. Dave Cunningham made 31 stops for the Lord Jeffs to earn the win before giving way to Danny Vitale for the final 3:19, while MacDonald turned away 34 shots in the loss.

The Soaring Eagles will return to action tomorrow when they face Wesleyan University in the consolation game at the Buck Supply and Hynes Electric Cardinal Classic Tournament. Game is set to start at 4:00 p.m.