HAMILTON, N.Y. (October 11, 2024) – The Sacred Heart University men's ice hockey team got figuratively punched in the mouth early in its season opener on Friday night, and trailed 3-0 after 20 minutes on the road. The Pioneers fought back. They trailed 5-3 with five minutes to play in the second. The Pioneers fought back again.
 
The only way Colgate could get out front to stay was to score in sudden-victory overtime, where SHU had no chance for a rebuttal. Daniel Panetta's second of the night capped a 3-on-2 rush at the 4:27 mark of the extra session, as the Raiders dealt Sacred Heart a 6-5 (OT) loss on opening night.
 
Maine transfer Felix Trudeau (Terrebonne, Quebec) scored twice in his Pioneer debut as part of a three-point night (2-1-3), while Aiden VanRooyan (Dakota Dunes, S.D.) and Cole Galata (Newmarket, Ontario) each scored their first collegiate goals for SHU (0-1-0).
 
The first period was all Colgate (1-2-0), as the Raiders posted a 15-8 shots advantage and put away three goals in a span of 11:06 to jump to a 3-0 lead at the first intermission.
 
"I didn't like how we started the game," said head coach C.J. Marottolo at the end of the night. "We weren't moving our feet and we were turning pucks over. Colgate has some very good offensive players; if you give them short ice you end up chasing the game, and that's what we did."
 
SHU had the game level six minutes into the second.
 
Inside the first minutes of the middle stanza, Hunter Sansbury (Lomita, Calif.) forced Colgate into a defensive-zone turnover and quickly got the puck behind the net for Max Dorrington (North Reading, Mass.). Dorrington sent it to the bottom of the left circle for Trudeau, who banged home SHU's first goal of the season.
 
The Pios went around the horn on the power play to cut the gap to 3-2 at 2:14. Marcus Joughin (Tecumseh, Ontario) dug the puck out on the left side and moved it up high for Mikey Adamson (Quincy, Mass.). Adamson fed Trudeau in the right circle and the latter buried a laser from there. At 5:54, SHU got even at 3-3, when VanRooyan put a shot through home through traffic from the top of the left circle for his first collegiate score.
 
"I really loved our second and third periods; we battled and we showed a lot of heart," added Marottolo. "I thought one of the strengths of our game tonight was our forechecking. I thought when we put pucks in areas that we could get on top of, it led to great success for us."
 
The two teams would ultimately combine for six goals in the middle frame, as Colgate jumped out to a two-goal lead again. First, the Raiders worked the low-to-high play on the left side on the power play, with Panetta rifling one home from the top of the left circle at 8:55. Later, Michael Neumeier put a seeing-eye shot through a forest of bodies from the middle of the blue line at 14:30.
 
SHU got an important goal before the second ended, to cut the deficit to one heading back to the locker room. Adamson put a shot towards the net from the center of the blue line and then the game turned into a pinball machine. Trudeau deflected the shot en route, but redirected it over the top of the net. The puck rebounded off the glass behind the cage, came back over the net, and then Dorrington knocked it out of midair to pick up his first goal as a Pioneer, at 17:56.
 
Another bouncing puck helped SHU draw level at 5-5 at 7:37 of the third. Vitaly Levyy (Old Brookville, N.Y.) threw the puck towards the middle from the right side, and it was deflected by Charles Tardif (Quebec City, Quebec). The change of direction caused a Colgate defender to misplay the puck and it came to the stick of Galata on the doorstep. He would not miss from there, and his first career goal made it a brand new hockey game with just over 12 minutes to play.
 
The game managed to tighten up from there, with the two teams combining for just 11 shots in the third period. The 3-on-3 overtime seemed destined to decide nothing, until Colgate struck for the winner in transition at 4:27. Trudeau made an all-or-nothing attempt toward the goal in the offensive end, which ultimately left him off his feet and on the ice behind the Colgate net. The Raiders claimed possession and took off the other way on a 3-on-2, which Panetta ultimately finished from the bottom of the right circle to give the home team a victory in its home opener.
 
"We're disappointed with the OT loss, but there are a lot of really good things we can pull from this game and build on," concluded Marottolo. "Overall, the guys battled tonight and competed hard, and that's what we asked them to do. We'll try to pull out a different result tomorrow."
 
It was a tough night to be a goaltender at Class of 1965 Arena with both offenses buzzing. Cullen DeYoung (Canton, Mich.) finished with 26 saves against 32 shots in the SHU crease and suffered the loss (0-1-0). Andrew Takacs (1-0-0) was not really any better at the other end of the ice, but picked up the win after stopping 22 of 27.
 
The two teams wrap up their weekend series on Saturday, with a 4 p.m. faceoff.