After giving up eight goals last week, the Squirrels tightened up on defense and shut down Syracuse on Thursday, 5-2.
The scoring didn’t start until the second period when Tony Richelson scored at a nearly impossible angle when he hit the top left corner of the net from the far right side of the goal. Later in the period, Don Marks got the puck through four players and the goaltender to put the Squirrels up by two.
In the third period, Ben Sumner scored off of a rebound, but Syracuse struck back less than a minute later. Marks then scored his second of the game from Matt Borlik’s centering pass. Syracuse again cut the Squirrels’ lead to two with 6:38 remaining in the game before having a four-minute power play. But the Squirrels killed it, and then Sumner got his second goal of the game after fetching a loose puck from a neutral-zone collision and skated in on the breakaway.
Marks played right wing instead of defense. Ed Bager was the other right wing as the Squirrels were short on forwards. Jared Genser, Adam Hughes and Sergio Balatan missed the game for the Squirrels. Drew Thiemann played defense, and Brian Rimm made 15 saves in net. The Squirrels had 32 shots, 15 in the second period.
The next game is Tuesday, at 10 p.m. against Southwest Airlines in the Patrick rink.