Sophomore Ryan Lough snapped a 2-2 tie with a wrist shot under the crossbar with 2:33 to play in the second period and sent St. Lawrence University on its way to a 5-2 college hockey victory over Niagara in the NCAA opener for both teams at Appleton Arena Friday night.

Five different players scored goals for the 19th-ranked Saints and special teams played a big role as well. SLU went one for four on the power play and killed off all four Niagara man-up opportunities, scoring a shorthander in the process.

The Saints will be out to complete an opening weekend sweep when they host RIT to complete the Homecoming Weekend series Saturday at 7.

"I like our power play with Gavin (Bayreuther) and (Nolan) Gluchowski back there, those two guys should be able to control it and get some shots at the net," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "When we got our power plays their team was a little worn down, so our guys were able to maintain possession for long periods of time and get some shots.'

"I liked every part of our game except for a couple puck decisions and a couple of breakdowns in our system which gave them too many odd-man breaks. The PK was real good and the shorthanded goal by Michael Laidley was huge…it came off a great pass by McGovern. Special teams looked good and that was one area where we want to take a step forward. Our power play needs to be a lot better and our penalty kill was strong for the most part but kind of faded at the end. Tonight was a good start in that area."

The Purple Eagles took the early lead in the game as freshman Ryan Kuhn scored on Niagara's first shot on goal in the game, 9:49 into the first period as he finished off an odd-man rush. The Saints came back to tie it when senior captain Brian Ward snapped a shot under the crossbar off a feed from classmate Sean McGovern at 16:38, but Niagara came right back down and regained the lead as freshman Nick Farmer scored his first collegiate goal on another odd-man rush at 17:29. Saint freshman Michael Laidley capped a wild two minute stretch with a shorthander from McGovern for his first collegiate goal at 18:06 and a 2-2 tie after one period.

The Saints controlled the second period, putting 16 shots on Niagara freshman goalie Guillaume Therien, but Therien stopped 15 of them as part of a solid 41 save performance. Lough scored the game winner as he took a pass from Joe Sullivan, broke into the Niagara end and cut across the goal mouth to score on a wrist shot at 17:27.

The Saints put it away in the third period as senior Tommy Thompson redirected a goal mouth pass for a power play goal 1:09 inito the period and senior Christian Horn picked up a rebound and put it over a tangle of players and into the net at 9:14 to complete the scoring.

Sophomore Kyle Hayton had 25 saves for the Saints to earn the win as SLU outshot Niagara 46-27 for the night.