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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (3/19/11) – The Colgate men's hockey team played its final game of the season in the third-place game at the ECAC Hockey Championship as the Raiders fell to Dartmouth, 5-3, on Saturday evening.

All three graduating seniors for Colgate tallied points as Francois Brisebois scored his 17th goal of the season, while Wade Poplawski and captain Brian Day added assists. Robbie Bourdon posted a pair of goals for the first time in his career and Mike Leidl, Thomas Larkin, Kurtis Bartliff and Austin Smith each had assists. Rookie Eric Mihalik closed out his first season with 29 stops in net.

Dartmouth (19-12-3) scored two of their five goals on the power play and two came in the first period. Matt Lindblad led the way with three points on a goal and assists and Dustin Walsh had a goal and an assist for two points. James Mello pushed aside 20 shots to earn the win.

Colgate (11-28-3) took an early 1-0 lead on Bourdon's 11th goal of the season and 50th career point with 7:41 left in the first period. Thomas Larkin found Bourdon on a two-line pass. The sophomore fired a wrister that got by Mello, hitting the cross bar and the puck dropped behind the Big Green netminder. Wade Poplawski earned his ninth assist of the season and Larkin added his sixth on the goal.

Dartmouth evened the score with 5:35 remaining in the first with Goggin scoring on the power play. The goal came with three seconds left on the man advantage and he connected on a slapper from the point that beat Mihalik on his blocker side. Linblad and Walsh were given assists on the play.

The Big Green added their second power play goal of the first period with 18 seconds left in the first frame. Lindblad had the score after a receiving a pass from Mike Keenan. He was alone the top of the crease after getting behind the Colgate defense. He put a move on Mihalik and the netminder made a great toe save, but Linblad got his stick on the rebound and scored.

Dartmouth outshot the Raiders 14-5 in the first period. The Big Green spent most of the final 7:28 of the period on the power play and came through with two scores. Colgate did not receive a power play in the first 20 minutes.

Rob Smith increased the Big Green's advantage to 3-1 at the 17:19 mark. He jammed home a rebound after Mihalik made the first save on Evan Stephens. Kyle Reeds and Stephens got helpers on the goal.

Colgate stopped the Dartmouth run with its own power play goal after the Big Green was called for a five-minute major. With 24 seconds left on the advantage and after Larkin hit the post, Brisebois drilled home a shot from the slot. Bartliff sent the pass to the slot and Smith were given the secondary assists.

The Big Green pushed it back up to a two-goal lead at 4-2 with 4:11 left in the second as Estoclet did the same as Brisebois did for the previous Colgate man advantage. He camped out in the slot and connected on a one-timer beating Mihalik. Scott Fleming spotted Estoclet from behind the Raider net.

Walsh increased the lead for the Big Green to 5-2 at the 11:09 mark of the final period. He was able to find a crease behind the Colgate defense and slipped a backhand into the net. Lindblad found Walsh for his third point of the night with the assist.

Mike Leidl scored his second of the season with 3:59 left in the game with a blast from the right point that found its way past Mello to cut the lead to 5-3, but time ran out and Dartmouth came away with the 5-3 win.

The Big Green was 2-for-6 on the man advantage, while the Raiders score once in five opportunities.

NOTES: This was Dartmouth and Colgate's fourth match up of the season … the two teams played their two regular season games and then were in the consolation game at the Ledyard Classic … these two schools have played three consolation games against each other in the last seven years of the ECAC Hockey Championship … Bourdon tallied his 50th career point with the first period goal … He had his first two-goal game of his career after scoring goals in 19 different games … Poplawski recorded his eighth career playoff point … Brisebois added to his career year with his 17th goal of the season and his seventh on the power play, which is a career-high as well … Day posted his 12th career playoff point … Dartmouth wins the season series 3-1 and has a one-game advantage all-time at 42-41-5 … Poplawski, Brisebois and Day played in their final game in a Colgate uniform … the trio played over 415 games combined and Day is in the top-10 for games played all-time at 149 … they each played in two ECAC Hockey Championship Weekends.