CANTON, NY– The Colonels Men’s Ice Hockey team split a weekend series with the SUNY Canton, losing game one 6-4, and winning game two 7-5.

Game one took place Friday night as Brett Riley’s crew made their highly anticipated debut

The Colonels new program debuted strong, as Donald Flynn and Tyson Araujo scored the first two goals. The ‘roos scored late in the first period to make it 2-1, which the Colonels followed up with a costly mistake. Michael Gurska took a five minute major penalty for spearing at the end of the period, which also resulted in a game misconduct.

SUNY Canton scored twice during the power play, giving them a 3-2 lead.

The Kangaroos would go on to score another before Chris Dalfarra cut the lead down to one with just 46 seconds remaining in the second period.

With the score 4-3 going into the third, SUNY Canton was determined to put this game away. The Kangaroos scored twice more and it wasn’t until there was just three seconds left when Jay Gallagher scored to make it a 6-4 game.

The Kangaroos struck first, but the Colonels came right back scoring four unanswered goals. Nick Fea scored the equalizer for the Colonels, followed by the first short-handed goal in program history from Wade Novak. Flynn and Taylor Bommarito added goals just 44 seconds apart to put the Colonels up 4-1.

SUNY Canton continued to fight, as they scored another but Tyler Barrow answered quickly making it 5-2.

The Kangaroos grabbed three more goals including two in the second, but Wilkes continued to answer back with Novak’s second short-handed goal of the game and Tyler Barrow scored with 34 seconds left in the game.

Wilkes heads up to Elmira, N.Y. to face Elmira College on Friday before their home opener on Nov. 9 against Stevenson University.