February 17, 2007

Castleton ties Wesleyan on the road, will have to travel in tournament

Middletown, Conn. - Though Castleton freshman Steve Culbertson scored from in close off a feed from the point by junior Matt Link to tie the game at 7:18 of the third period, the tie did the Spartans no good in securing a home game for the upcoming ECAC East tournament.

On the other hand, the tie gave Wesleyan home ice for the upcoming NESCAC tournament as it gave the Cardinals one more point than Amherst, which lost its finale to Middlebury. Castleton ended up in the three-way tie for third with Skidmore and Southern Maine and all
three teams were 1-1 against the other two. The next tie-breaker is wins, and Skidmore and Southern Maine both have 12 while Castleton has 11.

Wesleyan took a 1-0 lead just :19 into the second period when freshman Woody Redpath took a square pass on the left from senior Taylor Evans and went upstairs for his sixth goal of the year.
Castleton tied it at 5:05 on a power-play goal just seven seconds in to the man-advantage when junior Travis Martell took a shot from the middle 15 feet inside the blue line that found the net through a screen. That upped Martell's scoring for the year to 7-20-27.

Wesleyan got the go-ahead goal at 14:02 of the second period as freshman Sam Robinson netted his fourth goal of the campaign by finishing off a pass from senior Mike Barbera with a backhander from the slot for a 2-1 Wesleyan lead. Culbertson's tying goal, his team-leading 16th of the year, came on the power play. Wesleyan had a power-play chance of its own late in regulation but did not score.

Sophomore goalie Jay Seals made 20 saves while keeping his save percentage (.905) and goals against average (1.80) coming into the game virtually unchanged, He is 6-1-1 on the year in nine games with seven starts. Wesleyan sophomore Mike Palladino made improvements on his number (.915 save percentage and 2.20 GAA) with 30 stops. [Box Score]

###Spartans###