Yale freshman wing Ted Hart took advantage of a friendly hop off the end boards and scored his third goal of the season with 9:30 to play in the game and it turned out to be the game-winner as the 12th-ranked Bulldogs beat St. Lawrence 3-2 in a ECAC Hockey game at Appleton Arena Saturday night.

Yale bottled up the Saints for the first 40 minutes of the game, but had to hold off a late SLU charge to improve to 11-4-4 overall and 6-3-3 in league play. The Saints are now 11-11-2 overall and 5-6-1 in the ECAC.

"We weren't good enough through the first two periods," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "There wasn't enough desperation. I didn't think we played well enough tonight till the third period. We finally found some pace to our game and some desperation in the third, but you can't win with just 20 minutes of good hockey."

Yale scored the only goal of the first period when defenseman Ryan Obuchowski sent a shot toward net which deflected off two Saint sticks on a power play and past goalie Kyle Hayton at 7:43 for the early lead.

Freshman Joe Snivley scored his seventh of the year for Yale just 11 seconds into the second period as he finished off a quick odd-man rush, set up when a Saint defenseman took a high hit and had to leave the ice, leaving the Saints a man short in their own end as Yale broke into the zone.

The Saints got one back just 46 seconds into the third period as senior Alex Hagen scored his sixth of the season as he deflected a shot from the center point by junior defenseman Eric Sweetman on a SLU power play, but Hart gave Yale its two-goal lead again at 11:30 as he raced into the Saint zone and collected a dump in by Mike Doherty , which came hard off the end boards and left Hart all alone in front of Hayton.

SLU made it a 3-2 game with 17:13 to go when sophomore Joe Sullivan scored his seventh of the year, picking up a puck after a blocked Saint shot and snapping it inside the near post on Yale goalie Alex Lyon, but while the Saints were able to pull Hayton in the final 1:13 for an extra attacker, they couldn't come up with the equalizer.

Yale outshot the Saints 36-27 with Hayton making 33 saves and Lyon 25 in a meeting between two of the ECAC's top goaltenders.