TROY, N.Y. – The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) men's hockey team competed with the No. 13 Cornell Big Red at the Houston Field House on Friday evening, taking just a 2-1 deficit into the second intermission. However, two goals by Cornell in the third period downed the Engineers in a 4-1 loss.
 
Cornell jumped on the board first early in the first period, as a broken play out front of the net for the Big Red resulted in a scramble. Sullivan Mack possessed the puck for Cornell, and found Jonathan Castagna cutting through the slot. The wrist shot beat Jack Watson, giving Cornell the 1-0 lead at the 16:01 mark.
 
The Big Red added to that with under two minutes remaining in the opening period, as Luke Devlin collected the puck behind the net, skated out front and shoved the puck past the far pad of Jack Watson to make it 2-0. Tyler Catalano received the lone assist on the play for Cornell.
 
RPI made their move in the second period, as Austin Heidemann found the back of the net on the power play to bring the Engineers back within a goal. Heidemann took a pass from CJ Regula, then skated in toward the slot where he let a wrist shot fly for the score.
 
Watson continued showing brilliant play in the back throughout the second period and into the third. However, Cornell broke through with their final pair in the last frame – scoring both less than two minutes apart at the 10:18 and 12:03 marks.
 
Gabriel Seger scored the third goal to give Cornell some cushion, a one-on-one battle with his defender that he won and scored as he skated in with some contact with Watson to make it 3-1. Ondrej Psenicka had the fourth goal, scoring on the power play from Nick DeSantis and Jake Kraft to shut the door on the Engineers chances.
 
RPI returns to action on Saturday, Feb. 10 when they host Colgate at 7 p.m. in the Houston Field House for the 46^th Annual Big Red Freakout.