The Engineers put their game faces on for the first round of the ECAC playoffs against Yale University, but came just short of making it through. The Bulldogs took the lead early in the first with Chris Cahill getting one past junior Mathias Lange and then followed that up eight minutes later on a power play goal by Matthew Thomey. The Engineers did not stay silent for long though, as junior Garrett Vassel knocked one in to get them in the game. Freshman Scott Halpern tied it up with seconds left in the first off with the aid of classmates Tyler Helfrich and Chase Polacek.
The game remained in a gridlock through the rest of regulation time. In a playoff match that comes to a tie, 20 minute sudden-death overtime periods are played until a winner is determined.
The game continued on through two scoreless overtimes where each had a power play opportunity and was not able to take the advantage. While both sides were tired, neither gave up the fight. At 5:40 into the third overtime, Yale’s Broc Little ended the night, to bring the Bulldogs to one on the series.
Lange stoped 53 pucks over the night, while Alec Richards swatted 27, both playing the entire 105:40 minutes. It was the eighth longest game in the NCAA, third in the ECAC and the longest game ever at the Ingalls Rink.
Game two brought even more difficulty, as both teams, tired from the night before, took the ice. RPI took the lead late in the first and kept it until the third. Helfrich and senior Jonathan Ornelas tallied in back-to-back goals.
Yale got into the game when Ryan Donald slipped one past Lange early in the second. At the end of the second, as the players were exiting the ice, junior Andre Uryadov was handed two minutes for roughing and a ten-minute game misconduct.
The Bulldogs tied up the game late in the third to force the contest into overtime for the second night in a row. Just five minutes into the overtime, Sean Backman ended the post-season for the Engineers, setting the Bulldogs to face Princeton in the second round.
