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February 22, 2008

Cards wary of Potsdam

By JOHN CORYER

PLATTSBURGH -- The Plattsburgh State men's hockey team has nine skaters with 20 or more points on the season -- and 14 with 11 or more.

Potsdam State, meanwhile, has only two players with 20 or more points and eight with 10 or more.

Cardinals' freshman goaltender Bryan Hince sports an 18-4 record and a 2.07 goals-against-average.

Bears senior netminder Rob Barnhardt, meanwhile, has compiled a a 5-4-2 record and a 3.74 gaa.

However, none of the those statistics matter now.

If the top-seeded Cardinals don't perform better than they did in a season-ending 4-2 loss at Potsdam State on Feb. 15, their stay in the State University of New York Athletic Conference Tournament will be a short one.

Plattsburgh State and fourth-seeded Potsdam go at it for the third time this season at the Stafford Ice Arena tonight at 7 p.m. in SUNYAC Tournament semifinal round action.

"Our record is 0-0 right now," said Plattsburgh State head coach Bob Emery. "It's a whole new season.

"We've focused all year on taking it one game at a time. And, we won't be playing any other games in the (SUNYAC) tournament after tonight if we don't come to play against Potsdam.

"It's the battle of the North Country."

The other semifinal tonight has third-seeded Fredonia at second-seeded Oswego.

The Bears, who finished with a 6-7-3 record in the conference regular season, are 10-12-4 overall.

Potsdam, which dropped an embarrassing 11-1 decision at the Stafford Ice Arena early in the 2007-08 season on Oct. 26, gained some momentum with the recent win over Plattsburgh State, and followed that up wth a convincing 7-2 thumping of Cortland in the SUNYAC Tournament quarterfinals on Wednesday night.

"Potsdam will be coming in here with a lot of confidence," Emery said. "We gave them confidence when they beat us and they took that emotion into the Cortland game where they played real well. Potsdam's emotion will be as high as it can be because they have a lot going for them."

The Bears have won three of their last four games after going winless in their previous five.

Two sophomore forwards -- Connor Treacy (8-16-24) and Luke Beck (9-12-21) lead the Bears in scoring.

Plattsburgh State, meanwhile, is 21-4 overall and won the SUNYAC regular season championship with a 14-2 mark to gain home ice throughout the conference tournament.

The loss to Potsdam, however, didn't provide the Cardinals with a great deal of momentum heading into tonight's game.

"We're going to have our hands full, no doubt," Emery said. "We're going to have to rally around what should be a large crowd and get emotion from them as well.

"We need to play smart defensively, pay attention to details and play good, sound Cardinal hockey in order to be successful."

Plattsburgh State won eight games in a row until winning just twice in its last four games.

Leading the Cardinals in scoring are freshman forward Dylan Clarke (16-14-30), junior forward Riley Hill (14-14-28) and freshman forward Eric Satim (9-18-27).

"We're in pretty good shape physically," Emery said. "It's been a long week of practice and the guys are anxious to get the game under way.

"It seems that our last game was a long time ago."

Should the Cardinals prevail tonight, they will host the SUNYAC Tournament championship game against either Fredonia or Oswego next Saturday.

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