Freshman wing Mike Marnell scored two goals and set up a third and goaltender Kyle Hayton made 38 saves for his second straight playoff win as St. Lawrence University advanced to the ECAC semifinals in Lake Placid with a 5-1 win over Rensselaer to complete a quarterfinal series sweep at Appleton Arena Saturday night.

The Saints, 1-0 winners on Friday in just the second home 1-0 victory in program history, improve to 20-13-3 heading into its first appearance in the semifinals since 2010 while RPI finishes its season 12-26-3 after a hard-fought series with the Saints. Second-seeded SLU will have to wait until Sunday evening to find out its semifinal opponent and game time as both top seed Quinnipiac and third seed Yale will play a decisive game three on Sunday with their series against Union and Harvard tied at 1-1.

Marnell picked a big night for his first collegiate two-goal game as the Saints improved to 6-0 in ECAC tournament games and 7-0 in post-season play overall against the Engineers. He opened the scoring 5:45 into the game as he redirected a shot from the point by freshman defenseman Nolan Gluchowski past RPI goalie Jason Kasdorf and then stemmed a momentum shift with a big goal with 1:51 left in the second period to make it 3-1 after two.

"Our freshman class has been outstanding," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "Marnell and Gluchowski had big nights tonight and Hayton has been tremendous from the start.

"It is never easy to knock a team out, and I give RPI a lot of credit. They got a lot of pucks to the net and the momentum was against us for a good stretch midway through the game, but Marnell's second goal took the wind out of their sails and we put together a solid defensive effort in the third period. We also waited a little more on the transition in the third and Christian Horn's goal was a result of that.

"It is exciting to get back to Lake Placid with the chance to play for a championship," Carvel added. "This group has certainly exceeded expectations throughout the year and this is a great reward for their efforts."

Alex Dahl gave the Saints a 2-0 lead just 1:05 after Marnell's first goal as a pass from senior defenseman Chris Martin went in off Dahl's skate and the goal withstood a video review.

RPI, which outshot the Saints 39-27 for the game and 16-9 in the first period finally got a puck past Hayton 2:02 into the second period when Chris Bradley sprung junior center Mark Miller on a breakaway and Miller scored his seventh of the year. Marnell gave the Saints their two goal lead back at the other end of the period as he took a pass from Martin, controlled a bouncing puck and walked in on Kasdorf for his second of the game and 10th of the year.

Sean McGovern then sent sophomore Christian Horn in on a rush with just over three minutes to play and Horn put his seventh of the year in off the post at 16:58 and Marnell set up junior center Brian Ward for Ward's ninth of the year into the empty net with 14 seconds to go in the game.

Hayton finished with 38 saves for the Saints while Kasdorf had 22 for RPI.