St. Lawrence University's men's hockey team got exactly the start it was looking for, scoring twice in the first five minutes of the game against the nation's top-ranked defense, and freshman goalie Kyle Hayton made the early lead stand up as the Saints snapped a six-game winless streak with a big 3-1 victory over Cornell in a ECAC Hockey game at Appleton Arena Friday night.

"We came out really strong and got the jump early," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "It was a real solid effort across the board and a consistent 60-minute effort which is just what we needed to get the win."

Defensemen scored each of the first two goals as the Saints were relentless on the forecheck early to set up the first and cashed in on the power play for their second. Rookie Nolan Gluchowski scored his third of the year to open the scoring and sophomore Gavin Bayreuther scored his fourth of the season on the Saints' first power play of the night.

Gluchowskiscored on a shot from between the blue line and the top of the faceoff circle as the puck appeared to glance off a Cornell defender and past Big Red goalie Mitch Gillam just 1:45 into the game and s Bayreuther scored his fourth of the year on a shot which beat Gillam inside the far post on the first Saint power play of the game at 4:34 for the quick 2-0 lead.

Cornell coach Mike Schafer called a time out after the second Saint goal and the Big Red settled down defensively, but couldn't get anything past Hayton until 8:10 of the third when senior defenseman Jacob MacDonald unleashed a bomb from the top of the faceoff circle which beat Hayton to the upper corner for his first of the year and third of his career to make it a 2-1 game. The goal snapped an eight-period scoreless streak for Cornell.

The Saints, who had chances to cushion their lead, including 1:17 of two man advantage to end the second period, held off further Cornell forays with the help of Hayton and junior center Brian Ward iced the win when he hit the empty net with 25.6 seconds to go in regulation time. Ward took the puck from Drew Smolcynski with Gillam pulled for an extra attacker, worked around a Cornell defender and put the puck into the empty net for the Saints' first empty netter of the year.

"There weren't a lot of momentum shifts in the game and I thought our defense played a very smart game against their forecheck and did a great job of breaking the puck out," Carvel added. "We forechecked well, got good puck pursuit and took the puck to the net. We executed our game plan and got a big win out of it."

Hayton finished with 21 saves for the Saints, now 9-9-2 overall and 5-3-0 in the ECAC while Gillam had 22 saves for the Big Red, 5-7-2, 3-4-0.

The Saints face another big test on Saturday when they complete the weekend series with 17th-ranked Colgate at Appleton Arena.