HAMILTON – Rory Connor scored his third goal of the game on Brian Minicus' sixth assist of the day to give Colgate a 9-8 lead the Raiders would not relinquish en route to a 11-8 victory over the Air Force Academy at Andy Kerr Stadium.  

The fourth quarter was dominated by Colgate with the Raiders scoring four consecutive times. Prior to Connor's go-ahead goal, Ryan Decker scored off Minicus' fifth assist to tie the game at 8-8. The Raiders added insurance goals from Colin Ruppenstein at 4:27 and  Minicus' second goal of the game with less than a minute remaining.

After a 45 minute delay due to a brief snow squall that deposited over an inch of snow and wind chill factors in the single digits on the field an hour before game time, the game was back and forth with six ties and four lead changes. Colgate took a 2-0 lead less than four minutes into the game on two Rory Connor goals, both off assists by Minicus. A pair of Falcon goals tied the score at 2-2 at the end of the first quarter.

Just 40 seconds into the second quarter Adam Salvaggio gave the Raiders a 3-2 lead on the third consecutive helper by Minicus. Air Force tallied four of the next five goals with an unassisted goal by Minicus splitting the Air Force runs giving the Falcons a 6-4 lead at the half.

The Raiders scored the first three goals of the third period to surge to a 7-6 lead. Brendan Jordan deposited a marker from Connor at 13:22. Five minutes later Marshall Terres drilled an unassisted goal past the Falcon netminder, and Michael Minicus completed the run off his brother's fourth assist of the afternoon. Air Force rallied for the final two goals of the period and an 8-7 lead.

In addition to the scoring, Colgate dominated the fourth quarter statistics. The Raiders scooped six ground balls to four for Air Force. Thomas Colucci won all five faceoffs for the Raiders in the fourth on the way to a dominating 17 of 20 wins in the game. Matt LaCombe made seven of his 19 saves in the Raider net in the fourth, and Colgate was successful on all three clears attempted in the quarter.

Head Coach Matt Karweck on the game:
"The story of the game for me is that despite the elements we don't think about that stuff. The team has a really great way about them that they don't care about weather, they don't care about whatever it is. They're just like, 'All right, we've got a game today. Let's go.' That to me is what competitors do. The parameter has been set and then you just go out and execute as best you possibly can.

They did a great job of not talking about it, not thinking about. They really let the game come to them. This past weekend down in Carolina prepped us for this game. We came back and won and we held the lead. I'm so proud of the way our guys did that.

It's an unbelievable team win for us. In the locker room I was just talking about the scout team. All week long they busted their chops trying to do what Air Force does as well as we possibly can. They give us an unbelievable look so our defense could prepare.

This is what team is all about. It took all 48 of our guys to execute this win.

What a great job by our faceoff unit. Thomas Colucci was unbelievable, and that whole unit was outstanding. It's not about just one man vs. one man. The entire unit is responsible for the success today. They're engaged, they care and they're really good at what they do. They gave us the possessions that we needed to win."

UP NEXT: 
Colgate hosts upstate rival Hobart College on Friday, February 25, at 5:00PM.