RYE, N.Y. – Curry College scored three times in the first period, including a pair of scores by senior Sean Sylvester, and the Colonels held on down the stretch to knock off USCHO.com #4 Manhattanville by a 3-2 score in non-conference men’s hockey action on Saturday afternoon at Playland Ice Casino.
 
Sylvester led all scorers with two goals in the win, while freshman Connor Hendry also scored for the Colonels. Junior assistant captain Mickey Lang (Reno, Nevada) had both Manhattanville goals in a losing effort, as the Valiants tried to mount a third-period comeback but came up a goal short.
 
Manhattanville fell behind early thanks to penalty problems, as three shorthanded situations in the first 10 minutes resulted in a pair of Curry scores. The Colonels capitalized on their first man-up chance of the afternoon at exactly the 5:00 mark of the opening frame, as Sylvester stuffed home the rebound of a Steven Mohler shot. The senior doubled the Curry lead 5:13 later on the team’s third power play of the day, scoring his fourth score of the season unassisted.
 
Curry did not let up the offensive attack, scoring again less than two minutes later while the teams skated four-on-four. At the 12:04 mark, Hendry picked the pocket of a Valiant defenseman in the slot and fired a rocket into the upper-right corner to beat junior goaltender Sergiy Sorokolat (Kharkiv, Ukraine), who had come on in relief of sophomore Pierre-Olivier Lemieux (Rimouski, Quebec) just minutes earlier.
 
After the first period, in which Curry held an 11-8 edge in shots, Manhattanville dominated statistically against the Colonels, recording a 37-11 advantage in total shots in the final 40 minutes of play.
 
The team’s edge in shots was 21-5 in the third period, when Lang scored twice to get the Valiants back in the game. The junior got the home team on the board 3:31 into the final frame, as senior co-captain Arlen Marshall (Quill Lake, Saskatchewan) won a faceoff to himself and then quickly fired a pass to the back post for a tip-in by Lang.
 
The Valiants pulled Sorokolat with 1:34 left on the clock and scored once, but could not find the equalizing goal. Lang netted his second of the day with the extra attacker on the ice, taking a pass from senior A.J. Mikkelsen (Chestermere, Alberta) and beating Curry senior Steven Jakiel with 1:11 remaining. But despite a pair of Curry penalties in the final 28 seconds, Manhattanville could not get a shot on goal during the power play and suffered its first loss of the season.
 
The early power-play goals doomed Manhattanville in the defeat, as Curry went 2 for 7 with the man advantage in pulling out the win. Conversely, the Valiant power play came up empty in nine man-up opportunities, despite firing 17 power-play shots at Jakiel over the course of the afternoon.
 
Jakiel kept Curry ahead by making 43 saves to improve to 3-0 on the season. Lemieux got the start for Manhattanville and allowed two goals on eight shots in the first 10:13 of play before ceding the net to Sorokolat, who suffered his first loss of the season despite making 13 saves on 14 shots the rest of the way.
 
Manhattanville (5-1-0, 5-0-0 ECAC East) will return to the ice tomorrow afternoon, when the Valiants welcome another undefeated team, Williams College, to Playland Ice Casino for a 3 p.m. start. Fans can watch all the action live on GoValiants.TV beginning at approximately 2:45 p.m. Curry (6-0-0, 2-0-0 ECAC Northeast) returns to action on Wednesday at Suffolk University beginning at 6 p.m.