POTSDAM, N.Y. – No. 4 Colgate fell to No. 2 Clarkson 3-0 in a battle of heavyweights for the ECAC Hockey Championship Sunday afternoon at Cheel Arena.
 
This was Colgate's first-ever appearance in the title game in program history.
 
The first period saw solid defensive play on both sides. Just under seven minutes into the game, Lauren Wildfang had a nice poke check to disrupt Clarkson's two-on-one breakaway. Julia Vandyk, who had 11 saves in the opening stanza, made several big stops to keep the Golden Knights off the board.
 
The Raiders started the second period with 1:58 carrying over on a power play, but were unable to cash in.
 
Colgate caught a couple tough breaks later in the period. Golden Knights forward Michaela Pejzlova snuck the puck past Vandyk with 6:05 remaining in the period. Clarkson added another with 22.4 seconds in the period as Loren Gabel was credited with the goal.
 
The defending national champions added another tally just over nine minutes into the third to take the 3-0 lead as Kelly Mariani found the back of the net.
 
Vandyk finished with 25 saves on 28 shots faced. The junior goaltender now has a save percentage of .926 on the season and a goals against average of 1.79.
 
BOTTOM LINE
Clarkson 3. Colgate 0 
 
WIN-LOSS RECORD
The Raiders fall to 32-5-1 on the season, while the Golden Knights advance to 33-4-1.
 
KEY RAIDER INFO
-This marks the farthest postseason advancement for the Raiders in program history.
-Jessie Eldridge, who earlier Sunday was named ECAC Hockey Player of the Month for February, earned a spot on the all-tournament team. Eldridge scored the game-winning goal against Cornell in the semifinal with just one second remaining. 
-This is first time in over a year that the Raider were held scoreless. The last time they were shut out was Feb. 25, 2017, against Cornell.

FACTS AND FIGURES
-The Raiders won 43 of the game's 65 faceoffs. Annika Zalewski led the way with 17 faceoff wins.
-The Golden Knights outshot the Raiders 28-26.
 
FROM THE SOURCE
Head Coach Greg Fargo
"There's certain moments that you look back on that you wish you had a different result. The power play to start the second period was a big moment. They stole some momentum off of that. They had a really good kill and then we weren't able to tilt the ice for the rest of the period. That was a big part of it."
 
"Being in this kind of environment was great. Just building off yesterday, there was a lot of emotion in the game. That's playoff hockey. For us, we just have to learn and continue to get better. We can dictate play whenever we want to and we have to continue to do that from this point on. We can't let our foot off the gas. We've got to keep going, keep pushing."
 
UP NEXT
Colgate will play Northeastern in the NCAA Quarterfinal Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Class of 1965 Arena. This marks the first-ever NCAA Tournament bid for the Raiders.