Despite scoring the first goal of the game and holding an opponent to a season-low 17 shots the Clarkson University Hockey team came up short in Game 1 of the ECAC Hockey first-round series at Cheel Arena on Friday night as RPI opened postseason play by taking a 3-2 victory.

The Golden Knights, who have not won a Game 1 in a playoff series since 2008, will host RPI (11-23-3) in Game 2 of their series on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. If Clarkson wins the teams will play again in a deciding Game 3 on Sunday. If the Engineers win on Saturday they will advance to the quarterfinal round.

Clarkson stands at 11-19-5 overall.

Clarkson outshot RPI by over a 2-to-1 margin 38-17, but went scoreless on three power-play opportunities. The Engineers were 0-1 on the man advantage.

In a scoreless opening 20 minutes, The Knights outshot the Engineers 12-6. Both teams had one power-play opportunity in the stanza.

Clarkson opened the scoring early in the middle frame when junior Pat Megannety (Oakville, ONT) redirected a shot by senior Joe Zarbo (Grand Island, NY) at 4:30 for his sixth goal of the season. Freshman defenseman Terrance Amorosa (Kirkland, QUE) also assisted.

The Engineers came back at 9:18 when Milos Bubela finished off a 2-on-1 rush by knocking in a pass from Zach Schroeder. Luke Curadi also assisted.

RPI, which entered the game on a four-game winless skid (0-2-2) against the Green and Gold, scored early in the final period to take its first lead and tallied the game-winner with 3:10 remaining.

Mark Miller put the visitors up 2-1 at 1:25 of the third, connecting off an assist from Bradley Bell. Midway through the stanza, the Engineers had a pair of breakaway attempts in a two-minute span, but junior Greg Lewis (Mars, PA) made a shoulder save on a shot by Mark McGowan and forced Riley Bourbonnais wide on his attempt forcing his shot to hit the near post.

RPI finally broke through with its third goal at 16:50 with Bubela scoring unassisted on a shot from the right circle for the game-winner.

The Knights pulled Lewis for the extra attacker with 3:02 remaining, and also went on the power play with 2:30 left for a two-man advantage. Clarkson could not convert on the power play, but scored shortly after it expired when freshman Brett Gervais (Corona, CA) tallied his first career goal, an extra attacker goal, during a scramble in front with 11 seconds remaining.

That was as close as the Knights would get, as they saw their winless stretch reach seven games (0-6-1).

Lewis made 17 saves, while Jason Kasdorf posted 36 stops in the Engineers net.