The fortunes of the Clarkson University Hockey team did not change with the opening of the New Year as the Golden Knights lost their fifth straight game with a 6-3 setback at nationally-ranked Bowling Green State University in Ohio on Saturday night.

Clarkson, which falls to 7-9-2 overall, will battled the 12th/13th-ranked Falcons again on Sunday, starting at 5:07 p.m. at the BGSU ice Arena in the Knights' final non-league contest of the season. Bowling Green, which extended its home unbeaten streak to 14 straight games, including a 6-0-4 mark this season, improved its record to 12-4-5.

The Knights posted their most productive offensive effort since late November against one of the top defensive teams in the country and snapped a lengthy scoreless stretch on the power play, but unfortunately Clarkson struggled on the penalty kill and allowed its most goals since mid-October.

Clarkson was 1-of-3 on the power play while Bowling Green went two-of-five with the man-advantage. Both teams had 35 shots on net.

The Knights fell into an early hole in the first period as Bowling Green scored three times, twice on the power play, in the opening 15 minutes. Jakob Reichert scored on a 2-on-1 rush at 1:33 to start the Falcons' spurt. BGSU appeared to make it 2-0 with a power-play tally at 5:10, but after a video review the goal was waved off because of goaltender interference. The Falcons, however, made the most of their following two man-advantage opportunities as Ben Murphy scored on a rebound at 9:30 and Sean Walker connected at 14:10.

A goal cause by gritty work in front of the Bowling Green crease got things rolling for Clarkson late in the opening frame as freshman Marly Quince was credited with the Knights' first score. With 37 seconds remaining in the period, Quince crashed the Falcon net and forced BGSU to mishandle the puck on a rebound and let it slip over the goal line.

The Knights struck again early in the second period when sophomore Nic Pierog snapped Clarkson's 0-of-36 stretch on the power play when he connected at 2:20. Pierog tallied his third goal of the year with a wrist shot off a pass from junior A.J. Fossen for Clarkson's first power-play marker since October 24 to bring the Green and Gold to within one.

The Falcons, however, regained a three-goal lead with a pair of scores 35 seconds apart latter in the middle frame. Pierre-Luc Mercier poked in a shot from the side of the net at 13:20, followed by Tyler Spezia' s goal on a 2-on-1 at 13:55 to give the home team commanding 5-2 lead through 40 minutes.

Murphy scored his second of the night at 5:49 of the third to give BGSU a four-goal lead.

Junior Troy Josephs closed out the scoring with his third goal of the season, at 9:10. Sophomore defenseman Kelly Summers and senior Pat Megannety assisted.

Junior Steve Perry got the start in the Clarkson crease and made seven saves on 10 shots before leaving after the Falcons' third goal. Senior Greg Lewis came on in relief at the 14:10 mark of the first and took the loss after making 22 saves on 25 shots.

Tommy Burke, playing in place of injured BGSU starter, Chris Nell, made 32 saves for the Falcons.