{"id":45087,"date":"2013-04-21T11:00:39","date_gmt":"2013-04-21T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=45087"},"modified":"2013-04-21T09:28:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-21T13:28:52","slug":"bucknell-rally-spoils-senior-day-13-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=45087","title":{"rendered":"Bucknell Rally Spoils Senior Day, 13-8"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Walsh tallied three goals and one assist Saturday in Colgate’s final home game of the season. (Photo by Bob Cornell)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ColgateE5728\"<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Hamilton, NY \u2013 April 20, 2013)\u00a0Four straight goals to open the second half \u2013 for the second week in a row, no less \u2013 weren\u2019t enough this time as 15th-ranked Bucknell posted a 13-8 victory over Colgate here Saturday.<\/p>\n

Senior Day festivities prior to face-off had the Raiders and their fans looking forward to the home finale for 10 team members. But the visiting Bison delivered the last punch in a back-and-forth affair to clinch the second seed at next weekend\u2019s Patriot League Tournament.<\/p>\n

Colgate is seeded fourth and plays Lehigh in Friday\u2019s second semifinal game at 7:30 p.m. Bucknell takes on Army in the Friday opener at 4:30 p.m. Sunday\u2019s championship game takes place at 3 p.m. All three games are being televised by the CBS Sports Network.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously with it being Senior Day, we wanted to go out with our last game on Andy Kerr as a victory \u2013 especially against Bucknell,\u201d senior captain James Queeney said. \u201cThings just didn\u2019t go our way. We just let them get too many easy ones down the stretch and turned the ball over a little too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colgate, now 8-5 overall and 3-3 in the Patriot League, turned a 5-3 halftime deficit into a 7-5 lead on goals by Brendon McCann, Eric Foote, McCann again and Matt Clarkson. Last Saturday, Colgate rallied from a 5-4 halftime hole by scoring four straight en route to a 14-10 victory.<\/p>\n

Change Works This Time<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Clarkson tally with 7:07 left in the third quarter resulted in Bucknell changing goalkeepers from Kyle Feeney to Sam Grinberg. Bucknell head coach Frank Fedorjaka tried that same move last year at Andy Kerr Stadium during the Patriot League Tournament semifinals, and Grinberg allowed three more goals in a 14-9 Raiders win.<\/p>\n

This time, the move worked to perfection as Grinberg permitted only one Colgate score over the final 22:07 while making six saves for his first decision of the season. The Bucknell offense, meanwhile, rallied to score seven of the final eight goals after the switch in net.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had success against their backup last year; I think it was the same guy,\u201d senior captain Peter Baum said. \u201cWhen a goaltender steals a few it can really kill your momentum. Today they sort of built off that and got rolling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effort was great today; we just didn\u2019t execute down the stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raiders head coach Mike Murphy mirrored Baum\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of the effort of my team,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe did a good job of scrapping. We\u2019re down two at the start of the third and come roaring out. Our guys were resilient; they did a good job of working at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019ve got to give credit to their goalies. They made some good saves. I don\u2019t know that we took particularly good shots when they changed goalies, but No. 1 (Grinberg) did a great job of saving the balls when he needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conor Keeps It Close<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bucknell, now 11-3 and 5-1, broke fast from the gate to post a 4-2 first-quarter lead. The Bison outshot Colgate 12-3 in the period, and Raiders goalkeeper Conor Murphy corralled six big saves to keep the home side close.<\/p>\n

Ryan Walsh scored both Colgate goals in those first 15 minutes en route to his seventh hat trick of the season. Saturday also marked the sophomore\u2019s 29th consecutive game with at least one goal scored.<\/p>\n

Matt Baker scored on a Walsh assist with 11:33 remaining in the second to slice the lead to 4-3. And that\u2019s where it looked like the half would end before Bucknell\u2019s Kyle O\u2019Keefe scored his first goal of the year in the last split-second before the halftime horn sounded.<\/p>\n

But instead of moping around the locker room, Colgate simply gathered itself and then followed the same plan as the week before at Lafayette.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came out in the start of the second half very well; it was like at Lafayette,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cUnfortunately, we weren\u2019t able to get some stops down the stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Colgate grabbed the 7-5 advantage, Bucknell rallied to tie before Walsh scored his third of the day with 3:55 left in the third quarter. But another late Bison push resulted in two orange-clad goals in the period\u2019s final 49 seconds to make it 9-8 Bucknell heading to the fourth.<\/p>\n

Ground Balls the Game<\/strong><\/p>\n

And the final period was all Bison as Colgate was held scoreless in a quarter for just the third time this season (first periods against both Cornell and Army). Ground balls in the period were 12-6 in favor of Bucknell, part of a 41-29 Bison advantage in that department for the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes down to ground balls,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cThey were able to extend possessions and we weren\u2019t able to do that. And when your offense doesn\u2019t have the ball, it\u2019s tough to score.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to the team that we had to win the ground-ball battle and we got really worked on the ground balls. It allowed them to have extra possessions offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clears also hurt the Raiders in the second half. Colgate was a perfect 10-of-10 in the first half and just 7-of-10 after intermission. Bucknell cleared 19 of its 23 attempts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a really good job in the clearing game early, and then just had a couple of failed clears at inopportune times that gave them extra possessions and resulted in goals,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cThey scored in the situations when they needed to, so credit goes to Bucknell.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Walsh\u2019s four-point game, McCann and Foote finished with three points apiece. Bobby Lawrence grabbed five ground balls and forced two turnovers, while Queeney, Clarkson and Baum added three ground balls each.<\/p>\n

Sean Doyle led the Bison with four goals and one assist.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough way to end your career at Andy Kerr,\u201d Baum said. \u201cA lot of great memories there. But today didn\u2019t go our way and that\u2019s the way sports go. It meant a lot to get that last game here and have my family here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Chances for Revenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next up for Colgate is the Patriot League Tournament, which starts Friday at Bethlehem. Including Friday\u2019s game against Lehigh, the Raiders will be facing any combination of the three teams that defeated them during the conference regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat matters is next weekend and the Patriot League Tournament,\u201d Queeney said. \u201cAbsolutely we have some venom for all three of the teams coming in and we also know we can beat anybody in this tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t done it in the regular season \u2013 we haven\u2019t strung together our best games \u2013 but all it takes is two games this weekend. We have the goal ahead of us that we still want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baum, who was held Saturday to six shots and one assist, agreed with Queeney on the venom part.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, it\u2019s put-up-or-shut-up time and everybody will be focused,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got three teams that have beaten us already this season, so we\u2019ll be excited coming out to practice on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy also has a good feeling about the upcoming weekend despite Saturday\u2019s setback.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go into this tournament, everybody\u2019s 0-0,\u201d he said. \u201cYeah, I get it \u2013 Lehigh\u2019s hosting and they\u2019re the No. 1 seed. But you still have to play the game, and we\u2019ve got a resilient group. We\u2019ll get back after it Monday at practice and get ready for whomever we\u2019ve got to face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bucknell 13, Colgate 8<\/p>\n

Bucknell (11-3, 5-1):\u00a0Sean Doyle 4-1, Chase Bailey 2-1, Thomas Flibotte 2-0, Peter Burke 1-1, Tom Black 1-1, Todd Heritage 1-0, Kyle O\u2019Keefe 1-0, Ryan Joseph 1-0, David Dickson 0-4, Alex Spring 0-1. Totals: 13-9.<\/p>\n

Colgate (8-5, 3-3):\u00a0Ryan Walsh 3-1, Brendon McCann 2-1, Eric Foote 1-2, Matt Clarkson 1-0, Matt Baker 1-0, Peter Baum 0-1. Totals: 8-5.<\/p>\n

Saves:\u00a0Colgate 17 (Conor Murphy); Bucknell 10 (Kyle Feeney 4, Sam Grinberg 6).<\/p>\n

Halftime:\u00a0Bucknell 5-3.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Walsh tallied three goals and one assist Saturday in Colgate’s final home game of the season. (Photo by Bob Cornell) (Hamilton, NY \u2013 April 20, 2013)\u00a0Four straight goals to open the second half \u2013 for the second week in a row, no less \u2013 weren\u2019t enough this time as 15th-ranked Bucknell posted a 13-8 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}