CANTON, N.Y. – Freshman Tristan Ashbrook scored twice and sophomore Owen Savory made 25 saves to lead the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) men's hockey team to a 3-0 victory over St. Lawrence University, on Saturday night at Roos House Ice Arena. With the win, the Engineers improve to 8-10-1 overall (5-5-1 ECAC Hockey), while the Saints drop to 3-15-3 (1-8-0 ECAC Hockey).

The win completes just the fifth North Country sweep in school history, with previous iterations of RPI teams collecting all four points in 1977-78, 1984-85 and 2012-13. The Engineers defeated No. 4 Clarkson last night, 3-1.

Ashbrook (Mantistique, MI/Lincoln Stars) opened the scoring the Engineers at 16:18 of the first period, taking a cross-crease feed from senior Mike Gornall and snapping home his third goal of the season into an open cage. Sophomore Ottoville Leppanen (Espoo, Finland/Espoo Blues U20) collected the secondary assist after helping force a turnover the offensive zone.

The Saints best chance of the period came six minutes earlier, when junior Keenan Suthers (Tecumseh, ON/Dubuque Fighting Saints) skated up the right wing boards on a breakaway, only to see his shot kicked away by the right leg of RPI sophomore netminder Owen Savory (Cambridge, ON/St. Catharines Falcons).

Freshman Zach Dubinsky (Highland Park, IL/Lincoln Stars) turned in RPI's first opportunity of the second period, wiring a backhander wide from the low slot, just over a minute in.
Less than a minute later, St. Lawrence senior captain Michael Laidley (Little Current, ON/Aurora) then saw his shorthanded breakaway chance go by the wayside, as Savory stood tall between the pipes.

Rensselaer then had a flurry of chances in the final three minutes, but were unable to stick a second puck past SLU freshman goaltender Francis Boisvert (Blainville, PQ/Ottawa Jr. Sens), despite the efforts of Gornall and senior Todd Burgess (Phoenix, AZ/Fairbanks Ice Dogs).

The Engineers nearly doubled their lead less than a minute into third, when freshman defenseman Simon Kjellberg (Nashville, TN/Dubuque Fighting Saints) rang a point shot off the crossbar and out of play.

Keeping the pressure on, RPI was finally able to break through for a second, when senior Chase Zieky (Avon, CT/Salmon Arm Silverbacks) found classmate Patrick Polino (Buffalo, NY/Lincoln Stars) flying into the offensive zone. Polino faked a shot before the driving the net and sticking home his sixth goal of the season from close range. Burgess collected the secondary helper on the play.

St. Lawrence pulled Boisvert with over 3:30 remaining and the Engineers quickly capitalized as Ashbook potted an empty-netter, on the fly from the neutral zone, for his second of the night and fourth of the year. The goal, which came at 16:35 of the final frame, drew a single assist from senior captain Will Reilly (Toronto, ON/Nanaimo Clippers).

Savory (4-7-1) made 11 of his 25 saves in the third period alone to pick up his first shutout of the season and second his career. Boisvert (0-6-1) had 31 stops in the night, including 14 in the middle stanza. RPI finished 0 for 3 on the power play, while the Saints went 0 for 4.

Gornall extended his point streak to four games with his first period helper. Ashbrook recorded his first multi-ponit and multi-goal game of his career. Savory now has RPI's last two shutouts, with his previous whitewashing coming in last season's Mayor's Cup, which officially went down as a 0-0 tie with Union.

The Engineers are back in action next weekend, when they host No. 2 Cornell and Colgate on Friday (7pm) and Saturday (7pm), respectively. St. Lawrence welcomes Quinnipiac and Princeton to town next weekend.