On a weekend in which the St. Lawrence men's hockey team received ten goals from nine different players, the Saint defense stood out both nights. Saturday it joined the offense as juniors Gavin Bayreuther and Eric Sweetman each scored a goal in addition to helping hold the Rochester Institute of Technology to 20 shots on net in a 5-1 win.

The Saints swept their home opening series for the second time in Greg Carvel's tenure as head coach, and Carvel came away pleased with the weekend effort, but cautioning that things were still a work in progress.

"I think you are going to see the same thing all year. We have all four lines that can score. Parts of the game I wasn't too happy with…early in the game we were a little sloppy at times, I don't know if we were a little too comfortable going into the game. Ultimately the result was 5-1 and shots were lopsided again. I am happy for the first weekend. We did a good job."

The Saints jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead as senior Alex Hagen scored on a tip of a shot by Sean McGovern in close at 7:02 and Bayreuther scored his first of the year on a shot from the center point that his traffic in front and settled inside the left post at 15:32 with Michael Laidly and Mitch Eden assisting.

Sweetman made it a 3-0 game with a bomb from the center slot which beat RIT goalie Mike Rotolo high on the glove side at 14:05 of the second period with assists from Tommy Thompson and Nolan Gluchowski, but RIT's fourth line responded just 33 seconds later on a goal by Garrett McMullen to make it a 3-1 game after two.

The Saints, who outshot RIT 17-8 in the second period, put the game away in the third. Woody Hudson scored on a one-time wrist shot off a Bayreuther pass at 7:06 and Christian Horn scored his second goal of the weekend as he walked out of the corner and beat Rotolo with a backhand shot at 13:21.

Rotolo finished with 34 saves for the Tigers while Saint sophomore Kyle Hayton stopped 19 of 20 RIT shots to earn his second win of the young season.

"We saw a lot of good things for the first weekend. Our back end is going to be really good from Sweetman to Bayreuther to Gluchowski and Purmal. I am real excited about our back and unlike last year Hayton doesn't have to make a thousand saves. We've done a good job of limiting shots and that is a real good sign."

The Saints will continue a challenging non-league schedule to start the season when they play at the University of New Hampshire and at Merrimack College of Hockey East on Oct. 16-17.