Drew O'Connor scored twice and had an assist to lead Dartmouth to a 5-2 victory over Colorado College Saturday night at the Ledyard Classic in Hanover, N.H.
 
Matt Baker added a goal and an assist as the Big Green improved to 5-4-2 and will play UConn for the tournament title tomorrow night. UConn defeated St. Lawrence, 3-2, after tying the game with .3 of a second left in the third period, then winning in the ninth round of the shootout.
 
Clay Han opened the scoring for Dartmouth just 1:23 into the contest. Daniel Warpecha skated out of the corner and found Han, who beat CC goalie Matt Vernon from the slot.
 
The Tigers (6-8-1) evened things up at the 2:50 mark of the opening frame when Grant Cruikshank scored his fifth of the season. A Dartmouth player tried to send the puck into the CC end, but it ricocheted off Connor Mayer back into the Dartmouth zone and Cruikshank gathered the puck and beat Adrian Clark from the left circle.
 
Dartmouth regained the lead at 16:13 of the opening period. Following a hooking call to Bryan Yoon, O'Connor sent a one-timer from the top of the right circle past Vernon just five seconds into the power play.
 
Baker started a flurry of goals late in the second period and scored Dartmouth's second power-play goal of the game to give the Big Green a 3-1 lead with 2:54 remaining in the period.
 
Chris Wilkie notched his team-high 10^th goal of the season just 24 seconds later when he took a pass from Alex Berardinelli in front of the net and poked a second chance past Clark to cut the Dartmouth lead back to one at 3-2.
 
The Big Green took their two-goal lead back, however, as Quin Foreman gathered the puck at the blue line and placed a wrister past Vernon from the top of the right circle with 1:26 left in the middle frame to make it 4-2.
 
O'Connor scored an empty-netter with 44.9 seconds remaining in the third period for the final goal of the game.
 
What Head Coach Mike Haviland Said
"I don't think we managed the puck very well tonight and they made us pay."
 
"We got out special-teamed tonight. We've talked about simplifying things (on the power play) and getting pucks to the net, but I don't think we did that tonight."
 
"They played hard and we didn't want the hard game tonight. That was alarming to me."
 
Colorado College Notes
Ben Copeland notched his first point since Nov. 16 with an assist on Chris Wilkie's goal
Alex Berardinelli has a point in each of the last two games
Wilkie led the Tigers with a career-high nine shots
Grant Cruikshank tied his career high with six shots
Bailey Conger returned to the lineup for the first time since Dec. 7
Dartmouth outshot CC, 40-31
CC was 0-4 on the power play; Dartmouth was 2-4
 
Up Next
The Tigers face St. Lawrence on Sunday, Dec. 29, at 4 p.m. (ET).