When a hockey team can average six goals a game, it's going to win games. Any doubt about the Big Green's inexperience at forward and goal-scoring ability was put to rest over the weekend, as Dartmouth sent Union packing 5-1 on Saturday after an 8-5 loss to RPI on Friday night. While the Big Green appeared to dominate the majority of Friday night's game, the explosive Engineers capitalized on third period opportunities to skate away victorious. Dartmouth's team defense responded on Saturday however by controlling the Skating Dutchmen attack and winning all the little battles that cost the Big Green against RPI.

RPI

Dartmouth entered Friday night's game winless against RPI in their last five meetings. After the Engineers struck at 5:51 on the power play, and then just nineteen seconds later, it looked like RPI once again had Dartmouth's number. However, Dartmouth's explosive first line of freshmen responded as Jamie Herrington '02 answered for the Big Green 6:44 into the period off the assist from David Risk '99. Ryan Chaytors '99 knotted the game at 2-2 with a short-handed goal. The period ended 3-3, after another power-play goal for RPI and freshmen Chris Taliercio's second career goal.

The Big Green clearly dominated the second period, shutting down three RPI power-plays and preventing the Engineers from setting up on offense. Freshmen goalie Robert Delwo stopped all seven RPI shots, while Mike Maturo '02 lit the lamp off assists from Chaytors and Dory Tisdale '01 to give Dartmouth a 4-3 lead going into the third period.

After going down 5-4 on two quick RPI goals, defensemen Scott Peach '99 demonstrated his offensive skills with a laser blast from the right point.

"I went back [behind the blueline] to get the puck, Dory screened one of the guys for me and then, as I turned up ice, it was wide open. One of their forwards locked on down low leaving no one there. It felt like Moses had parted the sea. I just used the [RPI] defensemen as a screen and let it fly."

Things got ugly for the Big Green after that as team defensive breakdowns and bad breaks led to three unanswered RPI goals.

"We felt like we dominated 55 out of the 60 minutes," said Risk. "We got some bounces in the third period, and they are a team that capitalizes on opportunities. As a team, we didn't play all that badly, but those bad breaks took the wind out of the sails."

Union

While the focus of this young season has been on the freshmen class, two veterans and pre-season All-Americans stepped it up on Saturday night as Dartmouth erased Friday night's game from their memories and dominated Union. Ryan Poulton '00, getting his first start of the season, responded with a hat-trick, and Eric Almon '00 returned to his familiar form, only allowing one Union goal on twenty shots.

Poulton struck first with a screen shot from the point off the man advantage for the Big Green with the assist going to Mike Maturo. Just two minutes later, 6:17 into the period Poulton netted what would be the game winning goal as Union goalie Leeor Shtrom