| 2/8/2003 10:14:26 PM
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ELMIRA, N.Y. -- In what could be termed a 'Heart Surgeon's Nightmare', the No. 7 Rochester Institute of Technology men's hockey team renewed its always dramatic series rivalry with Elmira Saturday night in another heart-stopping ECAC West contest at the Murray Athletic Center.
The game proved how no lead is safe and neither team should be counted out of the game no matter how far they are behind.
The Tigers (15-3-2, 5-1-1 ECAC West) learned this lesson well after building a 3-0 advantage, they saw Elmira score four unanswered goals starting with Craig MacDonald's sixth of the season 2:43 into the second period.
After trimming the RIT lead to 3-1 at the end of two periods, Elmira (13-5-2, 3-1-1 ECAC West) used the power-play to ignite their offense in the third period. A late second period penalty on Marc Hyman (Thornhill, Ont./Thornhill Rattlers) carried over into the third and the Soaring Eagles took advantage when Brandon Rose connected from Justin Siebold 1:02 into the period. Then just over two minutes later Siebold registered his 13th of the season to tie the game at 3-3 and Andrew Morris gave Elmira its first lead of the evening at the 8:13 mark, 4-3.
RIT battled back when Ryan Fairbarn (Innisfil, Ont./Georgetown Raiders) scored the first of two of the more important goals in his career with the Tigers evening the game at 4-4 at the 9:57 mark on feeds from Ryan Francke (Long Point, Ont./St. Thomas Stars) and Darren Doherty (Duoro, Ont./Cobourg Cougars).
However, Elmira's Siebold answered right back with his second of the night at the 11:55 mark to rebuild the one-goal lead 5-4.
Then it was Fairbarn once again registering the equalizer on the power-play with 5:38 to go in the game on a rocket slapshot from Mike Bournazakis (Toronto, Ont./Thornhill Rattlers) and Mike Tarantino (Oakville, Ont./Oakville Blades).
Special teams proved very important once again this evening as RIT converted two of its four chances on the power-play, while they thwarted 6-of-7 Elmira chances including the biggest penalty-kill of the evening when RIT was called for too many men on the ice with 1:44 to go in the overtime session. The PK unit limited the Soaring Eagles to just one shot on goal with the overtime man-advantage.
Despite a scoreless first 10 minutes of the first period, there were some strong scoring chances including a point-blank save on the doorstep by Elmira's Greg Fargo at the 4:16 mark robbing Bournazakis. Then at 4:43 it was RIT's Tyler Euverman (Surrey, B.C./Prince George)'s chance to put up the brick wall turning away Jason Silverthorn's shot on a 3-on-2 odd-man rush, then just over a minute later Euverman (27 saves, 5 GA) came up big again stopping MacDonald one-on-one.
Despite, Fargo (33 saves, 5 GA) blanking Bournazakis, the Tigers' fourth all-time leading scorer would have his revenge putting RIT on the board first when he beat the freshman netminder on the power-play from Fairbarn and Francke at 12:32 of the first period.
Sam Hill (Strathroy, Ont./St. Thomas Jr. B) continued his 12-game goal scoring streak and has 18 during the streak with his 21st of the season just nine seconds into the second period from Mike Tarantino (Oakville, Ont./Oakville Blades). Then Doherty made a great diving chip pass off the left boards to a streaking Jared Conlon (Morristown, N.J./Trinity Pawling) skating up ice who beat Fargo for his sixth of the season 1:48 into the second period to give RIT a 3-0 advantage.
The two teams get five days to think about the tie before closing out the season series in Frank Ritter Friday, Feb. 14 at 7 p.m. for what could be the deciding game for the ECAC West regular season champion and who will secure home-ice for the ECAC West playoffs.
