The Clarkson University Hockey team could not take advantage of home ice in its bid to secure a top four spot in the ECAC Hockey standings as the Golden Knights suffered a weekend sweep at Cheel Arena losing to Dartmouth 6-1 on Saturday night after falling 1-0 in overtime to Harvard on Friday.

Despite the two losses at home, Clarkson remains in a tie with Cornell for fourth place in the league with four games remaining in the regular season. The Knights are 10-8 in ECAC Hockey and 17-13-2 overall. Clarkson, which entered the weekend ranked 14/15 in the national polls, plays at Union and Rensselaer next weekend.

Shutout 4-0 in its previous two trips to Cheel, Dartmouth (5-12-1 ECAC/6-16-3) scored all the goals it needed this time around in the second half of the opening frame.

The first period started out well for the Knights who controlled the opening minutes of the stanza, outshooting Dartmouth 6-0 before the Big Green registered their first shot on goal seven minutes into the game. The second half of the period belonged all to the visitors, who put four goals on the scoreboard.

Rick Pinkston started the Big Green burst with his first goal of the season at 9:23. Brad Schierhorn followed at 10:50 and 84 seconds later Eric Neiley made it 3-0. With .3 of a second left in the period, Neiley added his second goal of the night and team-high 12th of the year for the 4-0 lead.

Clarkson got on the scoreboard late in the middle frame with freshman Jordan Boucher's (St. Therese, QUE) second goal of the season. Junior Joe Zarbo (Grand Island, NY) started the play by bringing the puck behind the Dartmouth net and sending a pass in from where freshman A.J. Fossen (Maple Grove, MN) and Boucher got shots off with Boucher finishing the power play at 17:31.

Clarkson came out strong to start the final period and looked to have scored its second goal just 30 seconds in. The play, however, was whistled dead and the goal disallowed after the officials ruled the puck had been covered by the Dartmouth goaltender.

The Big Green and came back with a pair of tallies 76 seconds apart with Grant Opperman connecting at 3:25, followed by Schierhorn's second of the game at 4:41.

Clarkson held a slight 32-31 advantage in shots.

Freshman Steve Perry (Ligonier, PA) stated in goal for the Knights and made six saves on nine shots before leaving at 12:14 after the Big Green's third goal. Sophomore Greg Lewis (Mars, PA) turned aside 19 of 22 shots in 48 minutes of action. Charles Grant picked up the win for the visitors, making 31 saves.

Clarkson was 1-of-5 on the power play and killed off both of Dartmouth's man-advantage opportunities.