It looked like St. Lawrence University's men's hockey team might finally get one against Colgate in its ECAC semifinal game at Lake Placid on Friday night. But, despite rallying three times from one-goal deficits, the Saints could never get a lead on the Raiders and the season ended 9:34 into overtime when junior center Mike Borkowski scored the game winner.

Colgate, 22-11-4, advances to play Harvard, a 5-2 winner over Quinnipiac in the early game with the two meeting at 7:30 Saturday in the title game. The Saints, who were picked to finish 11th in the pre-season polls, but charged to a second place finish, complete their year with a 20-14-3 overall mark.

"I think the difference tonight, now that the game is over, is that they are a more experienced team than we are," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "They made us pay when we made mistakes in our game. Five minutes into the game we had a little breakdown in our system and they scored.

"They're a really good team. I have watched that team grow up…we've played them in the playoffs three years in a row and they've had the same first line in each of those years. We have a lot of respect for that team. I think as a group we showed a little inexperience at playing playoff games at this level and in this kind of environment. We didn't play our best tonight, but we did play well enough to make it a good hockey game. But, again, we could have been better, but Colgate is a good hockey team and they made us pay."

The Raiders had the Saints' number this season, winning all three meetings and never trailing in any of the games with the line of Borkowski, Darcy Murphy and Joe Wilson doing just about all of the damage on Friday. Murphy had two goals and an assist, Borkowski had three assists to go with the game winner and Wilson had a goal and two assists.

Murphy opened the scoring just 3:21 into the game when he got a step on a Saint defender and snapped a shot into the upper corner over the glove of Saint rookie goalie Kyle Hayton. It held as the only goal of the first and the Saints came back to tie it just 1:04 into the second period when Joe Sullivan worked the puck in front to Mike Marnell who scored his 11th of the season and his third of the playoffs with Patrick Doherty also assisting.

Murphy scored his second of the night after a neutral zone turnover by the Saints set up an odd man rush with Murphy finishing it for his 10th of the year at 5:46 of the second.

The Saints, who had the shooting lanes for their defensemen taken away for a good part of the game by the Raiders, pulled even on a power play goal by Eric Sweetman, who scored his fifth of the season on a shot from the center point with Tommy Thompson and Mitch Eden assisting at 17:23.

Wilson scored his 11th 2:33 into the third as Murphy worked the puck free behind the net and Wilson walked out and tucked it inside the post for a 3-2 lead. It stayed that way until the final two minutes when the Saints pulled Hayton for and extra attacker and Gavin Bayreuther tied it at 18:38, getting his own rebound and burying a shot inside the far post. It was the first extra attacker goal of the year for the Saints and was set up by Brian Ward and Gunnar Hughes.

The Saints came out firing to start the overtime and had the edge in play with Colgate goalie Charlie Finn coming up with some key stops. The Raiders finally won it when the Saints couldn't clear in the defensive zone and defenseman Kevin Lough got the puck to Borkowski, who buried the game winner from between the faceoff dots at 9:34 of the overtime.

"We were picked to finish 11th because we lost a lot of scoring and a goalie who played four years. But I am more concerned about losing Gunnar Hughes, Pat Doherty and Chris Martin this year. They are really gutsy players, and heart is a lot harder to replace than talent. This group was a fun group to coach, they played hard every night." Carvel added