Trailing 4-3 to No. 6 Cornell with 1:06 left in the game, men's hockey Head Coach Brendan Whittet '94 pulled his goalie in favor of an extra attacker in last-minute desperation.
The Bears fired shot after shot on net and got one last opportunity with 10 seconds left. But Cornell's Patrick Kennedy blocked the puck with his body and passed it ahead to Blake Gallagher, who scored an empty-net goal with just one second left to give Cornell a 5-3 victory and Brown its first of two losses on the weekend.
"We could have easily won that game, and then maybe Saturday would have been a different story," said tri-captain Aaron Volpatti '10.
But the Bears lost their second game, falling to Colgate, 6-2.
No. 6 Cornell 5, Brown 3
Despite the large discrepancy between the team's two records, forward Tyler Roeszler of Cornell (14-7-3, 11-4-2 ECAC Hockey) said he knew the Bears (7-15-3, 5-10-3) would give his team a challenge.
"Their record may not show that, but make no mistake, we respect them and we knew they were going to work hard and battle," Roeszler said.
Cornell jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period on Friday, but the Bears hung around all night.
"Their resiliency was one of the things I was really impressed with," said Cornell forward Colin Greening. "When you get down two goals, it's hard to keep playing as tenacious as they were."
Two power-play goals for Brown — one toward the end of the second period by Volpatti and another in the middle of the third by Chris Zaires '13 — brought Brown within one for all but the last second of the final 9:14.
Volpatti said the game was well within reach.
"Obviously, they're a really good team," he said. But "to be honest, I don't think they're the No. 6 team. We could have won that game easily."
Colgate 6, Brown 2
After losing, 6-3, to Yale on Friday night, Colgate Head Coach Don Vaughan challenged his team to show how hard it could work and compete, according to Raiders' forward Brian Day.
Vaughan's team responded. Just 2:53 after the puck dropped, the Raiders (12-12-5, 9-7-1) got out to a 1-0 lead on Nick Prockow's goal.
"We just weren't ready to go that game," Volpatti said. "Obviously that's why (the early goal) happened. It's a momentum killer."
Two more Raider goals and a score by Sean McMonagle '10 for Brown made it a 3-1 game with Colgate ahead going into the final frame, but Day said his team wasn't satisfied.
"A 3-1 lead really isn't something that you can sit back on and be content about," he said. "We really didn't want to leave them hanging around in the third."
With 1:57 remaining on a Brown power play, it didn't look as though Colgate would be able to put the game away quickly. But despite the Bears' man advantage, Brown got lit up in the next 1:37, giving up two shorthanded goals just 45 seconds apart to give Colgate a 5-1 lead.
Both teams scored power-play goals in the middle of the third, and the game ended 6-2.
"It wasn't a successful weekend by any means," Volpatti said.
