|
Vince Rocco
|
NIAGARA UNIV. N.Y. - Junior Captain Vince Rocco (Woodbridge, Ont.) earned his first career hat trick scoring all three of Niagara's goals as the Purple Eagles (10-5-1, 4-3-1) fell to Canisius in a 4-3 decision at Buffalo State Ice arena in front of an announced 1,711 fans. Earning his 100th career point was junior Ted Cook (Hogansburg, N.Y.) picking up an assist off of Rocco's second goal.
Not wasting any time, the Purple Eagles were first on the board as Rocco found the puck at the Griffin's blue line from Matt Caruana (Orono, Ont.) and fired a shot from above the crease to start the scoring. Less than 20 seconds later Canisius answered back with Josh Heidinger sneaking the puck through on the short side to tie the game at 1-1.
Canisius took control in the second period scoring first and early, Heidenger banked another goal for the Griffins to advance Canisius to a 2-1 upper-hand. Rocco, once again stepping up for the Purple Eagles tied the game back up with a goal from Cook, who marked his 100th career point, being only the second Junior in the program's history to do so. Canisius was able to bank two more goal on Niagara's goaltender Juliano Pagliero (Dalroy, Alb.) before heading into the second intermission with a two goal lead.
Scoring Niagara's third goal, and sealing his hat trick was none-other than Vince Rocco off a pair of passes from Caruana, earning his third assist of the game, and Dan Sullivan (Scarborough,Ont.).
"I felt it tonight," said Rocco. "Too bad is was all for nothing. We got that one in the third period, but just the last five or six minutes we couldn't fire it up."
|
Ted Cook
|
Rocco is one of only two active Purple Eagles with hat tricks in their career. Les Reaney (Ceylon, Sask.) scored three goals in Niagara's victory over Air Force on Jan. 14, 2006 to earn him is only career hat trick.
"We played pretty well tonight, [Derek] Foam and [David] Ross played very well for us, as freshmen, obviously Rocco played very good," said Dave Burkholder. "Overall we had a good game with a lot of guys who played very well."
Getting the start, Pagliero played for the first and second periods stopping 19 shots before Adam Avramenko (Strathmore, Alb.) entered the game for the third period, making 7 saves.
Niagara is back on the ice Jan. 4-5 when it will travel to Ithaca, N.Y. to take on Cornell in a two game series.
