Mayor’s Cup stays in Schenectady as Union men best RPI 5-3

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Five different players scored as the Union College men’s hockey team won its third straight Capital District Mayor’s Cup with a 5-3 win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in front of a crowd of 5,968 on Saturday night at MVP Arena. 

The win is Union’s eighth win in 11 Mayor’s Cup games against RPI, and also marks the first time that a school has won three straight games in regulation or overtime in Albany. In addition, the win improves Union’s overall unbeaten streak to five games (4-0-1), tied for the longest unbeaten stretch since a 6-0-1 streak to close out the 2017-18 regular season. 

Senior Nathan Kelly scored his first collegiate goal to lead five different goals scorers for Union (12-11-1). Junior Cullen Ferguson led all players with three points on a goal and two assists and classmate Josh Nixon was the only other Garnet Charger with multiple points thanks to a pair of assists. At the other end of the ice, sophomore Kyle Chauvette made 22 saves to earn the victory in his first Mayor’s Cup game.

Junior Caden Villegas got the scoring started just 2:17 into the contest with his sixth goal of the season from Nixon and sophomore John Prokop. RPI’s Tyler Hotson equalized less than seven minutes later and the teams went into the first intermission tied at one.

The Garnet Chargers scored three times during a wild second period to a 4-3 lead into the final frame. After the Engineers grabbed their first lead of the night early in the second stanza, Ferguson tied the score at the 6:48 mark and Kelly put Union back ahead with his first collegiate tally with 9:07 remaining from sophomore Brandon Buhr and first-year DJ Hart. Rensselaer (7-16-1) knotted the score again less than three minutes later with a Dovar Tinling score, but sophomore Carter Korpi provided the go-ahead goal with 2:06 remaining in the frame, netting his team-leading ninth goal of the season from Ferguson and senior Chaz Smedsrud to give Union a 4-3 lead.

Union added to its lead 36 seconds into a five-minute major midway through the third period, as senior Ville Immonen beat Jack Watson from Ferguson and sophomore Nate Hanley at the 8:43 mark of the third. Chauvette shut the door by stopping all five shots that came on goal the rest of the way to earn the victory.

The Garnet Chargers finished the game with a 31-25 edge in shots. Union successfully killed off RPI’s only power-play chance of the game and went 1-for-4 on the man-advantage.

Union will return to ECAC Hockey play next weekend, beginning with a Friday night matchup at Yale University facing off at 7 p.m.