CANTON, N.Y. – The Union College men's hockey team scored three times during the third period to put away St. Lawrence University 4-1 on Friday night at Appleton Arena and extend its unbeaten streak over the Saints to seven.

Eight Union (16-9-2, 6-8-1 ECAC Hockey) players recorded points against the Saints (4-22-3, 3-13-1), and senior Ethan Benz notched the first point of his senior year, becoming the 23rd and final skater for the Garnet Chargers to tally at least one point this season. He assisted on first-year Troy Pelton's goal to open the scoring in the second period. Pelton also recorded an assist in the game, posting the first multi-point game of his career. 

Union's top-ranked penalty kill did not have any work to do in the first two periods, but it came up big on two occasions in the third. With Union clinging to a one-goal lead and first-year Brayden Gillespie already with 13 saves, the Saints earned their first man advantage midway through the final period. Gillespie made three stops during the first kill, and then the Garnet Chargers and Saints only had 27 seconds of 5-on-5 time before St. Lawrence went right back on the power play. Gillespie made two more denials while Union was reduced on the ice, preserving his clean sheet for the time being and helping boost Union's penalty-killing percentage to 90.8%. The Garnet Chargers have only conceded one power-play goal in the last six games, killing 13 penalties in that span. Union improved to 15-5-0 when denying a power-play goal to its opponent. 

Junior Carter Rose and sophomore Lucas Buzziol extended Union's lead to 3-0 late in the third, and Gillespie was 61 seconds away from earning his third shutout of the season when the Saints finally broke through.

However, St. Lawrence's comeback attempt with the extra skater fell short despite its goal at 18:59. Junior Tyler Dunbar made sure of it by depositing Union's second empty-netter of the game, converting with less than three seconds remaining. The Garnet Chargers are 13-0-1 when scoring four or more goals, and they earned their seventh win on a Friday of the season. Gillespie improved his league-leading ECAC Hockey save percentage to .931 with 24 saves on the night. He has made 20 or more saves in all eight of his conference starts this season. 

By kicking off the weekend with a victory, Union has a chance to sweep a weekend series in conference play for the first time since Jan. 3-4, 2025 against Brown and Yale. Union jumped up two spots in the ECAC Hockey standings to seventh with 20 points and is a point ahead of Clarkson. Harvard owns the final first-round bye position in fourth with 30 points. 

The Garnet Chargers can earn three more points on Saturday, Feb. 7 at 4 p.m. when they take on Clarkson in Potsdam, N.Y.