#19 Arizona State Shuts Out #16 Men’s Hockey to Retain Desert Hockey Classic Title
TEMPE, Ariz. — For a second consecutive season, No. 19-ranked Arizona State (10-7-1) retained the Desert Hockey Classic title as it posted a 4-0 shutout over the No. 16-ranked Cornell men’s hockey team (6-4-3) at Mullett Arena on Saturday night.
Sam Court, Lukas Sillinger, and Ryan Kirwan each had a goal and an assist to guide the Sun Devils to their seventh consecutive win, matching the longest win streak in program history. Ty Jackson also scored for Arizona State, who has scored at least four goals in four of its last five contests.
Making his first start since Nov. 8 against Colorado College, Arizona State junior goaltender Gibson Homer logged a season-high 34 saves for his second shutout of the season and the third of his collegiate career.
Dating back to last season, where he made 22 saves off the bench in a loss to the Big Red, Homer has stopped all 56 shots he has faced against Cornell.
Cornell senior netminder Ian Shane made 24 saves in between the pipes for the Big Red in the setback.
Arizona State took the lead just past the halfway point of the first period when Ty Jackson poked at a loose puck on the edge of the crease following a shot by his twin brother, Dylan. Lukas Sillinger set up the goal on a breakout pass from the Sun Devils’ defensive zone for his 90th career assist.
The Sun Devils doubled their lead with 26 seconds left in the first period as a defensive zone turnover by the Big Red led to Kirwan wristing a shot past Shane from the left faceoff circle.
Sillinger netted his first goal of the season that increased the Sun Devils lead to 3-0 at the 11:39 mark of the second period, concluding a stretch of 11 straight shot attempts by Arizona State across 73 seconds.
Court registered his second point of the night and second goal of the season to give Arizona State a 4-0 lead with 12 seconds left, one-timing a feed from Kirwan during a 4-on-3 power play.
The Big Red peppered Arizona State in the third period hoping to thwart Arizona State’s aspirations of registering a shutout, but Homer made 17 of his 34 saves during the final 20 minutes of play. Cornell had 35 shot attempts compared to the Sun Devils’ eight as the Big Red had a 17-5 edge in shots on goal.
Cornell concluded the game with a 75-45 edge in shot attempts and a 34-28 advantage in shots on goal.
GAME NOTES
• Saturday was the eighth all-time meeting between Cornell and Arizona State, all of which have come since the 2018-19 season. The Big Red’s lead in the series was trimmed to 4-3-1, as the Sun Devils posted its first win over Cornell since posting a 3-2 victory on Jan. 2, 2022.
• Cornell’s goal-scoring streak was halted at 49 games, being shut out for the first time since falling to Harvard in overtime, 1-0, in the semifinals of the 2023 ECAC Hockey Championship in Lake Placid, N.Y.
LONGEST GOAL-SCORING STREAKS
Cornell Program History
• 262 games (Dec. 29, 1972 – Dec. 5, 1981)
• 225 games (March 7, 1964 – March 17, 1972)
• 76 games (Dec. 28, 1995 – Jan. 31, 1998)
• 50 games (Jan. 23, 2016 – March 18, 2017)
• 49 games (March 15, 1998 – Jan. 24, 2000)
• 49 games (March 23, 2023 – Jan. 3, 2025)
• Sophomore forward Jonathan Castagna registered a team-high 16 faceoff wins, going 16-of-21 at the faceoff dot. The 16 draws won are the most by Castagna in a game in his collegiate career, besting his previous high of 13 set earlier this year at Harvard (Nov. 16).
• Freshman defenseman Nicholas Wolfenberg made his return to the lineup after not dressing in each of the Big Red’s last six games.
UP NEXT
Cornell will continue its seven-game road trip next weekend when it travels to Fairfield, Conn., for a two-game non-conference series with Sacred Heart (11-8-3). The series will begin on Friday, Jan. 10, with a 7 p.m. puck drop and concludes the following day with a 5 p.m. start. Both contests will air live on FloHockey.tv and be carried over the airwaves on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM, cortacatoday.com). Saturday’s game will air on a tape delay on SNY.
