In front of a raucous, sellout crowd of 5,317, the Engineers got goals from four different players—including senior Kevin Croxton’s first in two months and the first of junior Ryan Swanson’s career—and another solid goaltending performance by freshman Mathias Lange to take the victory.

“I thought it was a great team effort and certainly a weekend we needed to get in the bank, especially considering the way things are in our league,” said Head Coach Dan Fridgen. The victory marked a weekend sweep for the Engineers, their first since the home series against Quinnipiac and Princeton in November.

“We’ve been fighting the injury bug, and you take the cards that you’re dealt, but now we’re starting to get some bodies back,” he added. “We worked hard and picked up for one another and that’s what we needed to do.”

Croxton’s goal, his first since the game on December 10 against RIT, came at 9:58 of the first period. “It felt great,” he said. “It’s huge to get rolling and get the crowd in it right away. It was a great play by everyone on the ice … I got an open lane to shoot and [freshman Kurt] Colling made a great play to tie up the defenseman so I could get that far with the puck.”

Brown’s Jeff Prough tied it up at 13:53, but Swanson gave the Engineers the lead once again, less than a minute later. He deflected a lot of credit for the goal to senior Chris Hussey, who set him up with a pass just as a four-on-four situation was ending. “Hussey made a great play,” Swanson said. “Everybody converged to him on that four-on-four, and he made a nice little pass over the guy’s stick. I settled it down and put it on net.”

“That was a huge, huge goal,” said Fridgen. “Comeback hockey is a tough game to play. That was what we had in mind, to keep them on the comeback trail and make it difficult for them.”

Sophomore Andrew Lord doubled the lead at 8:33 of the second period, and the Engineers killed four consecutive penalties through the second and third, including a five-minute major for hitting from behind assessed to sophomore Dan Peace. Peace’s hit also resulted in a game disqualification, which carries with it a mandatory one-game suspension.

Brown’s Matt Vokes scored an extra attacker goal with one minute left in the game to bring the Bears within one, but Colling put the puck in the empty net 18 seconds later for the final goal of the game.

It was the first sellout crowd since Freakout! last year. The win improved RPI’s Freakout! record to 18-7-4, which includes a 12-0-4 mark since 1991. RPI also improved to 8-0 against Brown in the event.

“[The crowd] was unbelievable,” said Croxton. “Like a seventh man out there. The atmosphere was unbelievable. Brown must think it’s like this every night.” With the win, Croxton’s class also notched a perfect record in four years of the event. The class of 2005 is the only other one with that claim.

“You don’t want to be the first class in a long time to leave on a losing note,” Croxton added. “It was real nice and the guys played great tonight; Matty [Lange] in the pipes and all the d-men. Swanny with his first career goal—it was huge. That goal really took the wind out of their sails.”