Feb. 5, 2005

Blair Yaworski scored two goals and had an assist as the Yale men's hockey team rallied twice to capture a 5-2 victory over St. Lawrence at Appleton Arena.

Yale (4-18-1, 3-13 ECACHL), which picked up its first road win of the season, also rode the shoulders of sophomore goalie Matt Modelski who stopped 43 of 45 shots, including 14 of 15 in the final period.

Junior forwards Nate Jackson (3 assists) and Brad Mills (2 assists) came up with big nights to help the Elis avenage a two-goal loss to the Saints at New Haven last month.

After doing their best job in recent weeks staying out of the penalty box the night before at Clarkson (2-1 loss), the Bulldogs got in trouble early because of infractions. Freshman Jean Francois Boucher had two calls in the first period and the second by the Yale forward resulted in a power-play goal by John Zeiler at 10:56. That was the only score in a period that SLU dominated with 21 of the 29 shots on goal, while Modelski needed 20 saves to stay in the contest.

The Elis had their share of the puck in the offensive zone in the penalty-filled middle frame (the teams skated 3-on-3 for 50 seconds). McKenna came up big almost every time with 13 saves, but Yaworski finally broke through with 1:23 left in the period. Jackson sent the puck to Yaworksi on the right side and Yale's leading rookie scorer wasted no time in getting off a quick shot that whizzed past McKenna's shoulder for Yaworski's first goal in a dozen games.

The Blue, also getting an assist from blueliner Bill LeClerc, won the second period by outshooting (14-9) and outscoring (1-0) the Saints.

The Bulldogs took a long time to tally their first goal but quickly got themselves in trouble after evening the score. A pair of whistles put them down two skaters for 90 seconds heading into the third, and the visitors managed to kill off both of them.

Then Christian Jensen put the Elis down a man again and the home team cashed in on this one.

While working the puck around the offensive zone, Modelski made a save but the puck stayed in front where Josh Anderson was waiting to bang it home at 2:29 with a power-play score to make it 2-1.

Once again, Yale got the equalizer from its rookie star on a feed from Jackson. This time Jackson sent a faceoff back to Yaworski (5 goals) who quickly fired a shot over McKenna's shoulder from the top of the left circle at 8:03.

Less than two minutes later, Yale took its first lead of the weekend. Jackson, earning his third assist of the night, managed to make a perfect feed while falling to the ice. The puck went to sophomore Robert Burns, who easily converted the pass for his third goal of the year and his team-high second game-winner.

SLU (13-12-2, 7-7-1) could not stay out of the box while trying to get an equalizer of its own. With the advantage, Jensen took a pretty pass from junior Jeff Hristovski and fired a high shot that beat McKenna with 2:50 left to make it 4-2.

Yale defenseman Robert Page put the game away with under a minute to play when he sent a long shot into an empty net for his second goal of the year.

Report filed by Steve Conn, Yale Assistant AD and Sports Publicity Director