Ice Knights Weekend Recap (10/20-21)

By: Nate Lull

The Geneseo Ice Knights started off their 2006-2007 campaign with two home victories last Friday and Saturday at the Ira S. Wilson Ice Arena. This was no small feat considering what Geneseo went through this past off season.

After winning their second straight SUNYAC Championship last March, the Ice Knights not only lost a talented group of seniors to graduation, they also lost first-year head coach and Geneseo alum, Jason Lammers. During the summer months Lammers decided to take an offer for an assistant coaching position with the Division I Ohio State Buckeyes hockey program. Having to act fast, Geneseo brought in another alum in Chris Schultz, who played with Lammers in his days as an Ice Knight and graduated from Geneseo in 1997.

Schultz had been coaching in Rochester, NY at the Aquinas Institute. There he compiled a very successful coaching record of 54-14-3 over the past three seasons. Schultz was also an assistant for the Ice Knights from 2000-2003.

Many have questioned how the team will fare this season. Few picked them to win a second straight SUNYAC championship last season when they entered the year with a new head coach; and the same is true this year. This season the Ice Knights will once again have to skate hard and win games in order to gain respect in the tough SUNYAC conference – they started their journey this past weekend by winning their first two games.

On Friday the Ice Knights hosted the Morrisville Mustangs – a team that is making the move from junior college hockey to the Division III ranks. They will be fazed into the SUNYAC conference over the next few seasons. The Mustangs were very successful at the junior college level, winning the last three national championships. The Mustangs banked on this experience and for one period had Geneseo right where they wanted them. Goals by Evan Kernohan and Geneseo native Patrick Morss had Morrisville up 2-0 after one period of play. Kernohan’s goal came on the power play after an early Ice Knight penalty. Morss’ goal was an impressive long-range shot that snuck over the left shoulder of Ice Knight Goaltender Derek Jokic and into the top corner of the net to put the Mustangs up 2-0.

Geneseo regrouped after the first period and came out firing in the second. Sophomore Defensivemen Chris Kestell scored the first goal of the season for the Ice Knights as he was assisted by Casey Balog and Mark Schwamberger on the power play. The Mustangs lead was gone under a minute later when Geneseo Senior and Assistant Captain Mitch Stephens scored a highlight-reel goal. Stephens made a swift move around one defender on the left wing side of the Morrisville goal. The defender had no other option then to body up on Stephens as he went around him. Stephens was tripped up, but this didn’t seem to bother him as Stephens fell to his knees; he slid for a moment then lifted the puck with his stick over the shoulder of Morrisville goaltender Travis Moore and into the upper right-hand corner of the goal. This tied the game up at 2 and this is how the period would end.

The third period brought out the offensive firepower for the Ice Knights. Stephens struck again for Geneseo less than a minute into the final period by scoring a short handed goal with an assistant from Senior Tyson Terry. This put Geneseo up 3-2. It was Stephens’ first short-handed goal of the season. He led the Division-III hockey nation in short-handed goals last year.

Morrisville wasn’t quite ready to go away though as Tyler Fulton found the back of the net only thirty seconds after Stephens' second goal. This tied the game up at 3-3 and it appeared that the Mustangs weren’t going down without a fight.

Geneseo needed to respond and they did when Junior Mathieu Cyr scored the game winner with 17:50 to go. Cyr was assisted by his freshmen linemates, Dan Brown and Sebastian Panetta. Cyr used his speed to get Moore off-balance and was able to backhand a beauty through the five-hole to seal up the win.

First-year Phil Rose from Pittsford, NY finished up the scoring for Geneseo as he netted his first goal of his college career on the power play mid-way through the period. This finished up the game with Geneseo coming back from being down 2-0 in the first period to defeat Morrisville 5-3.

Geneseo defeats St. Clair, 7-4.

After defeating Morrisville on Friday night, Geneseo had to make a quick turn around and host an afternoon game against the St. Clair Saints from Windsor, Ontario, Canada on Saturday. This game did not count on the record for the Ice Knights and was considered an exhibition game.

Coach Schultz decided to mix things up in net and start Sophomore Jeff Pasemko between the pipes. The move worked as Pasemko looked strong and the offense of the Ice Knights came out in full force to defeat St. Clair 7-4.

Geneseo received goals from Brandon French, Tyson Terry, Ram Sidhu, Dan Brown, and Mitch Stephens. Stephens scored another short-handed goal on a beautiful break away on a pass from Steve Sankey. Freshmen Forward Sebastian Panetta scored two goals and really sparked the Ice Knight attack. The line of Brown, Mathieu Cyr, and Panetta is one that has a lot of speed and could pose problems for Geneseo’s opponents all year.

Sophomore Brandon French opened the scoring in the first period with a break away goal against Saints goaltender T.J. Aceti and continued his stellar play when he assisted on the second period goal of Tyson Terry.

“We need to pepper the goalie with shots” French said after the first period. “He is a good goalie and we need to just keep plugging away on him.”

French and the Ice Knights did just that as they scored five second period goals and frustrated Aceti all afternoon. The Ice Knight defense also looked stellar on Saturday as Senior Captain Steve Jordan led the way. Geneseo kept St. Clair standouts Kyle Lang and Jim Lebarron in check throughout the game.

Jordan leads a talented group of defensivemen for the Ice Knights this year. This includes Junior Captain Steve Sankey, Senior Tyson Terry, Sophomore Chris Kestell, Senior Mike Morris, Sophomore Sean Hayden and strong newcomers in Andrew Rebus, Jeff MacPhee, and Dave Schroeder. This group should be a strong point for Geneseo this year and they certainly looked this way last Saturday.

After battling with the Saints for one more period, Geneseo came away with a 7-4 victory over St. Clair. An impressive win over a team that had already played six games so far this season, including two games against Division I opponents.

Overall, it was a good opening weekend for the Geneseo Ice Knights. They got two wins that they needed to open the season. First year Head Coach Chris Schultz got his first two wins behind the bench for Geneseo and he will look to continue this success next weekend when Geneseo hosts non-conference foe Neumann College from Pennsylvania. Both games are at 7 PM on Friday and Saturday night.