SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- There will be no sharing of the Cleary Cup.
Union captured the ECAC Hockey regular season title outright Saturday night with an impressive 6-2 win over St. Lawrence, and in the process, clinched the top seed for the ECAC Hockey Championship. The Dutchmen have now won 10 straight home games -- the second longest active streak in the NCAA Division I ranks.
Daniel Carr scored twice and finished with three points while classmate
Mat Bodie added a pair of assists on Senior Night before the seventh sellout of the season at Messa Rink.
The third-ranked Dutchmen (22-6-4/16-3-1) applied pressure early, building a 18-3 shot advantage after 20 minutes.
Sebastien Gingras opened scoring with a power play goal at 16:03, launching a shot from the left point through a maze of traffic in front of the net. Just 22 seconds later at 16:25,
Nick Cruice skated down the left side and finished a shot off a centering pass from
Daniel Ciampini, who saw his goal-scoring streak end at six games.
St. Lawrence (12-16-4/6-10-4) battled back in the second period, and finished with a 9-8 edge in shots. Union made the most of its shots adding three more goals in the period. Carr scored twice in a span of 2:06 -- his first coming on a slapshot from the right circle at 14:25, followed by a breakaway goal at 16:31 that was set up on a 40-foot pass from Bodie.
The Saints broke through with a goal from Alex Hagen at 5:49 of the third period, ending goaltender
Colin Stevens's shutout streak at 141:04.
Eli Lichtenwald answered at 8:52 when
Matt Wilkins drew the defense along the right boards and dumped a pass to Lichtenwald in the slot.
SLU's Gunnar Hughes scored his 16th goal of the season at 10:53 of the third to make it a 6-2 final.
Union travels to Yale next Friday (Feb. 28) on the closing weekend of regular season play.