Box Score Box score
The Saints nearly pulled off one of the bigger upsets of the season on Saturday night at the Cardinal Classic in Plattsburgh, N.Y., but St. Scholastica (5-8-2) fell one goal short in their 3-2 loss to No. 3 Plattsburgh State (14-2-0) in the tournament's championship game before a crowd of 1,279 fans.
Playing on their home ice, the Cardinals jumped ahead first with Dylan Clarke scoring 8:50 into the first period to give the hosts a 1-0 lead.
St. Scholastica defenseman Neil Sauter (Superior, Wis./Superior HS (Lincoln-USHL) ) knotted things up less than three minutes later, though, scoring his first goal of the year, coming off an assist from Joey Hughes (Springvale South, Australia/Cowichan Valley (BCHL)).
The second period followed the same script with Plattsburgh scoring first as Phil Farrow found the back of the net at the 11:27 mark while the teams were skating 5-on-5 following a pair of roughing penalties.
Late in the period, with only 1:16 to play, St. Scholastica's Joey Martini (Calgary, Alberta/Canmore (AJHL)) pulled the Saints even at 2-2 with his seventh goal of the year. A.J. Tucker and Kyle Luschinksi picked up assists on the score.
Through the first 40 minutes of action the Saints out shot the nationally ranked Cardinals by a 25 to 14 margin. In the third period, Plattsburgh would fire nearly as many shots, 11, at Saints goalie Steve Bounds (Airdrie, Alberta/Powell River (BCHL)) -- making his seventh start in a row -- as they had in the first two periods combined.
Midway through the final stanza Plattsburgh's Tom Breslin would get one behind Bounds for what would prove to be the game-winner.
Down one with the clock winding towards 00:00, and shortly after a timeout with 2 minutes remaining, Coach Wick brought Bounds to the bench for an extra attacker with 72 seconds to play but the Saints couldn't solve Plattsburgh netminder Bryan Hince who came away with the win in goal for the Cardinals, improving his season mark to 11-2-0 after stopping 31 of 33 shots.
Bounds (3-3-1) took the loss making 22 saves but, for his efforts in the Plattsburgh game and the win over Trinity on Friday night, earned the nod as the All-Tournament Team's goalie.
Also earning all-tournament honors for the Saints was Martini who had the game-winning goal against Trinity and another score against Plattsburgh.
