Three former St. Louis Jr. Blues were on the ice this weekend as the Rochester Institute of Technology battled St. Lawrence Unversity. Chris Saracino, Brandon Bollig, and Robby Moss all saw time in the game. According to the SLU website:
Senior captain Travis Vermeulen snapped a 1-1 tie with a power play goal midway through the third period and sophomore goaltender Robby Moss made 23 of his career high 42 saves in the third period to lead St. Lawrence University to a 3-1 win over the Rochester Institute of Technology in an NCAA Division I ice hockey game Friday night.
St. Lawrence improved to 2-1-0 on the season and won its home opener for the sixth straight season while RIT, 0-2, lost its second one-goal game despite outshooting the Saints 43-20.
Moss was tremendous in his first start of the year making quality saves in each of the three periods. He had nine first period stops as RIT outshot the Saints 9-4 and made 10 saves in the second period as the Saints came on strong in the second half of the period to pull even.
The Tigers took advantage of a fortunate bounce off the end boards to score the only goal of the first period. Sophomore defenseman Chris Haltigin blasted a shot which went well wide of the net, but the rebound came off the end boards and onto the stick of freshman wing Adam Hartley, who banked the puck into the net off Moss for his first collegiate goal at 11:37.
Moss came up big in the second period with several spectacular saves in the first half of the period and the Saints pulled even at the 15:35 mark. Sophomore Mark Armstrong scored his first goal of the season as he was alone at the side of the net and took a pass from Jared Keller after a faceoff win by Aaron Bogosian. Armstrong waited until RIT goalie Jared DeMichiel committed and then tucked the puck past him to knot the score.
\”That was one that Robby Moss swiped for us,\” said Saint coach Joe Marsh. \”It was a good end-to-end game and RIT really put the pressure on in our end, but we received good goaltending and some timely scoring to get the win.\”
Vermeulen collected a rebound of a shot by sophomore defenseman Pete Child and tucked it back past DeMichiel at 9:55 of the third period to put the Saints on top. Child took a hard shot along the ice after taking the puck from Brandon Bollig and while DeMichiel was able to stop the initial shot, he was helpless as Vermeulen was at the side of the cage and tucked the rebound away for his first of the year.
The Saints spent the better part of the third period in their defensive end, but weathered the storm as Moss made save after save to frustrate the Tigers. RIT pulled their goalie with 1:09 to play, but the Saints did a good job of keeping the puck out of the defensive end, and, following a couple of near misses, Vermeulen swooped into the RIT end and scored an empty net goal with just one second remaining on the clock.
DeMichiel finished with 17 saves, 10 of them coming in the second period, for the Tigers.
