Box Score
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Sean Backman’s goal 5:11 into the first overtime gave Yale University a 3-2 win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the second game of the best-of-three ECAC Hockey first round series at Ingalls Rink. The Bulldogs improve to 15-12-4 and advance to next weekend’s best-of-three semi-finals while RPI ends its season with an 11-23-4 mark.
Backman (Cos Cob, CT) put back a rebound of a Ryan Donald (St. Albert, AB) shot to give the Bulldogs their second consecutive 3-2 overtime win over the Engineers.
RPI held a 2-0 lead after the first period on goals by Tyler Helfrich (Calgary, AB/Prince George Spruce Kings) and Jonathan Ornelas (Mississauga, ON/Milton IceHawks) just 50 seconds apart. Helfrich, a freshman, scored on a right-to-left wraparound at 18:17 and Ornelas, a senior, tallied on a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle at 19:07. Chase Polacek (Edina, MN/Academy of Holy Angels) and Peter Merth (New Westminster, BC/Burnaby Express) set up Helfrich’s goal – his team-leading ninth of the season – while Erik Burgdoerfer (East Setaucket, NY/New York Apple Core) was credited with the lone assist on Ornelas’s marker. For Ornelas, who deked a defender before scoring, the goal was also his ninth.
Yale pulled to within one just 1:47 into the second period when Donald scored on a long shot while RPI netminder Mathias Lange (Klagenfurt, Austria/New York Apple Core) lay prone in the net after being run into by a teammate. Broc Little (Rindge, NH) set up the goal, Donald’s second of the year.
The Bulldogs tied the game when Little, who scored the game-winning goal in triple overtime in the first game, knocked in a loose puck off a scramble in front of the RPI net with 5:21 left in the third period. Denny Kearney (Hanover, NH) got the assist.
Lange, who had 52 saves in Game 1, made 35 saves, including 11 in each of the first two periods, nine in the third and four in overtime. Alec Richards (Robbinsdale, MN) stopped 16 shots on the other end. He had three in the first period, nine in the second, three in the third and one in overtime.
