A strong defensive effort and timely goals by senior defenseman James Howden (Edgeley, SASK) and sophomore Jordan Boucher (St. Therese, QUE) led the Clarkson University Hockey team past 14th-ranked Quinnipiac 2-1 in ECAC Hockey action before 2,111 fans at Cheel Arena on Friday night.

The Golden Knights, who have gone 2-1-2 to open conference play, improved their overall record to 4-5-4. The Green and Gold host Princeton on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. The Tigers lost 3-0 at St. Lawrence Friday night.

Clarkson played perhaps its best defensive games of the season, limiting the high-powered Quinnipiac (7-3-1, 4-1-0) squad to a season-low 17 shots and a 0-4 night on the power play, while snapping a seven-game winless skid (0-5-2) in the series. The loss broke a six-game winning streak for the Bobcats and was their first defeat in ECAC Hockey play this season. Quinnipiac entered the night scoring an average of 3.20 goals per game.

A strong forecheck by Clarkson led to the first goal when the Knights' forwards forced an errant pass by the Bobcats off the boards. Howden picked up the puck at the blueline and fired in a shot from the point that found its way through traffic at 5:32 for his first goal of the season. Junior Christian Powers (Carlisle, ONT) was credited with the lone assist, but sophomore A.J. Fossen (Maple Grove, MN) also played a role in the goal with a strong check in the corner to force Quinnipiac's clearing attempt.

The Bobcats tied the game at 10:19 of the middle frame when Soren Jonzzon scored on a 2-on-1 break as the Knights were caught in a line change.

Clarkson regained the lead late in the middle frame with a rare power-play tally. With one second left on a man-advantage, Boucher picked up a loose puck off a block shot by sophomore defenseman James de Haas (Mississauga, ONT) and connected for his third goal of the season at 18:10, snapping a 0-17 power-play drought with the Knights' third man-advantage goal of the season. de Haas recorded his team high sixth assist of the season on the game-winning goal.

Bidding to stay unbeaten in league play and retain its hold on first place in the conference standings, Quinnipiac made a late push to tie the game. With two Knights in the box and Quinnipiac's goaltender out for the extra skater, the Bobcats enjoyed 58 seconds of 6-on-3 play in the final two minutes and was on the power play for the final three minutes.

The Knights, however, were able to hold Quinnipiac off with the help off several key defensive faceoff wins by freshman center Brett Gervais (Corona, CA). Gervais won 11 of 18 draws in the game.

Clarkson, which went 1-of-4 on the power play, outshot the Bobcats 19-17. Sophomore Steve Perry (Ligonier, PA) made 16 saves to back stop the Green and Gold to their first home win of the season.