Child's play: Defenseman lifts St. Lawrence

CANTON — So what if Pete Child was a walk-on? So what if he didn't score a goal last year, and played in only one game — an exhibition one at that?

"He didn't play much last year," teammate Mike McKenzie said. "A guy like him steps in that nobody really knows about, but we knew about."

Sacred Heart knows him now. The sophomore scored his first career goal en route to a hat trick as St. Lawrence downed the Pioneers, 6-3, in a nonconference men's hockey game Friday at Appleton Arena.

"It's been a long road the last couple of years," Child said. "I finally got my shot this year and hopefully doing something nice with it."

His play showed that St. Lawrence may have lost a lot from the defense last season, but there's still plenty of talent left.

"We talked last year how strong our defense was — particularly generating offense from the blue line," SLU coach Joe Marsh said. "We didn't necessarily think that we would see that duplicated, but it was tonight. It was very similar to last year — Pete Child with three goals from point."

Child's hat trick is the first one for St. Lawrence since Travis Vermeulen pulled the feat against Dartmouth in Jan. 2008.

"We got four goals from defensemen tonight," Marsh said. "Anytime we're getting that and we're incorporating that into the offense is a plus for us."

The Saints ran away with the win almost from the start. Kyle Flanagan and George Hughes assisted McKenzie's score at 6 minutes, 24 seconds of the first period.

"As a team, we were rolling pretty good right from the first period," McKenzie said. "I think we played as close to a full 60 (minutes) as we have all year."

Child began his scoring outburst at 18:17 of the first, netting a shot from the point. Jeremiah Cunningham got the assist.

St. Lawrence took a 2-0 edge into the second period, where the real scoring began. Sacred Heart made it 2-1 when Eric Delong scored at 2:46.

Pete Child answered less than three minutes later on a power play. Then, Ricky Carden got involved, scoring his first career goal for SLU at 7:51.

"I thought Ricky played really well," Marsh said. "Anytime that happens, it seems to give a guy a boost."

Sacred Heart's Nick Johnson fought to get a goal back at 9:21 to make it 4-2. It took only 30 seconds for Child to respond to that one.

"It was nice to capitalize when we had some opportunities," Child said.

Sacred Heart, meanwhile, struggled to keep pace. On top of it, the Pioneers gave St. Lawrence four power-play chances in the second period alone — a fact caoch C.J. Marottolo said has to change for the second game tonight.

"Our guys could actually learn a lot from St. Lawrence," he said. "We're still crawling as a team. A lot of the little things we talked about before the game, we didn't do, and St. Lawrence made us pay."

The Saints netted two power-play goals in five chances. Child had one and Derek Keller scored the Saints' final goal at 17:43 of the third on another power play.

"I'm disappointed — not with the effort — but the stupid penalties that we took," Marottolo said. "We worked too hard in the summer and all week in practice for us to take some selfish penalties."

St. Lawrence, though, still didn't feel the game was won until the final horn.

"We tried to stay focused right down to the last minute," McKenzie said. "Our line's going pretty good, and we put a couple pucks in the back of the net. That's what we're there for."

In the end it was Child who earned the accolades, turning a walk-on opportunity into his first goal and first hat trick in the same night.

"I didn't get a shot last year, so I'm playing pretty well so far," Child said. "I just got a couple opportunities there and they worked out."

St. Lawrence finishes its two-game series with Sacred Heart at 7 p.m. tonight in Canton.