ASTON, Pa. – The Manhattanville College men's ice hockey team's 2019-20 season came to a close on Friday night, Feb. 21, following the 5-4 overtime victory over United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) foe Neumann University on the road. With less than one minute remaining in OT, junior co-captain Tristian Ramage was able to win the Valiants' regular-season finale.
 
Manhattanville (10-13-2, 7-10-1 UCHC) ends the season just two points out of the six-team UCHC playoff tournament at 22, while the Knights (9-16, 8-10 UCHC) clinch the sixth spot with 24 points. One highlight of the game for the Valiants was sophomore netminder Reid Robertson (Plano, Texas/Plano West), who made 24 saves in his second-career start for his first-career victory.
 
The game began with the Valiants taking a 1-0 lead midway through the first period off the stick of rookie Hayden Taylor (Bloomfield Hills, Mich./Detroit Country Day). The freshman forward scored one on the powerplay early in the third as well and closed the season on a hot streak with five goals in three games. Early on in the second, it was all Neumann as the home team tied it up just under six minutes in and then took the lead on the powerplay just over two minutes later.
 
Manhattanville did manage to tie it up at 14:19 in the second thanks to a goal by senior assistant captain Ken McLean (New Rochelle, N.Y./New Rochelle) – assisted by freshman Josh Fletcher (Calgary, Alb./Central Memorial). McLean finishes the season with 19 goals, which ties for fifth on the program's single-season record book, and ranks him fifth in all of NCAA Division II/III in goals per game at the close of the regular-season. He also added an assist in the third to make it 30 total points for the year and 77 for his Valiant career. Freshman Mason Emoff (Collingwood, Ont./Bishop's College School) struck again for Manhattanville at 17:11 to give the road squad its second lead of the night at 3-2, assisted by junior Braedan Cross (Sechelt, B.C./Shawnigan Lake) and sophomore Kyler Miller. However, Neumann was able to tie it up with 45 seconds remaining to make it 3-3 at the second intermission.
 
As mentioned, Taylor was able to get on the board for the second time on the night for Manhattanville early on the third, as the rookie made it 4-3 in favor of the Valiants following a powerplay goal at 3:20. McLean had the secondary assist, while sophomore forward Niko Happo (Kauniainen, Finland/Haukilahti Upper Secondary School) had the primary. Happo finishes the season with a team-highs in points (33) and assists (29) and was just one helper short of tying the program's single-season mark of 30. He also finishes the regular-season ranked fifth in DII/III in assists per game.
 
The Knights were able to tie it up once again later in the third period to force OT. It was there that Ramage was able to give Manhattanville its fourth and final lead of the night with just 00:59 remaining in the extra period – assisted by senior assistant captain Joel Knight (Stoney Creak, Ont./Orchard Park Secondary School) and rookie Troy Crosson (Hatfield, Pa./Pennridge) – to close the Valiants' season on a high note. The squad graduates just three players from this year's team and is expected to return 24 of 27 from a program that ended the regular-season with the seventh-ranked powerplay unit (27.7 pct.) in all of DII/III.