Princeton, NJ -- Freshman Marc Cavosie registered his first collegiate hat trick with two of the goals being short-handed, and his Rensselaer Engineers pulled away to a 6-2 victory over the homestanding Princeton Tigers on Friday evening.

Cavosie scored twice in the third period to make a 3-2 Rensselaer lead a 5-2 Rensselaer lead and put the game away.

Princeton scored when Josh Roberts swatted a rebound out of the air past Joel Laing 4:33 into the game to take the 1-0 lead.

Cavosie then scored the first of his three goals, shorthanded. Cavosie came in on Princeton goaltender Dave Stathos and was ridden wide by the defense, but put the puck back towards Stathos. The puck hit the back of Stathos and slowly crept into the net to tie the game at one.

"I knew there was a guy on me and I just tried to get it to the net," said Cavosie. "The goalie tried to play me and I tried to deke, and I got lucky, I guess. I made the move and it worked out well."

"He did a good job of fighting the pack off and staying with it," said Rensselaer head coach Dan Fridgen on the goal. "That shows me hunger and desire and a real willingness to commitment to get the job done."

The Engineers came out in the second period and took the lead 1:31 in. Matt Murley took an up-ice feed from Jared Reigstad and quickly dished it to Pete Gardiner, who found himself in alone and roofed it over a falling Stathos to make it 2-1.

After the Tigers took a penalty, Benoit Morin was called for a five-minute major for hitting from behind and the Engineers went on a two-man advantage, putting the Engineers on a two-man advantage.

They quickly converted, as a quick pass from Brian Pothier to Brad Tapper was one-timed between the legs of Stathos for the 3-1 lead.

The Engineers failed to score on the rest of the major and the Tigers got one back when Dave Schneider came down into the slot on the power play and wristed one that deflected off of Laing and into the net.

The third period was played without a goal for the first 11 minutes until Cavosie notched his second of the game, also shorthanded.

Tapper came down on the kill and took a quick snapshot on Stathos. He kicked the shot out, but directly onto the stick of Cavosie, and Cavosie snapped it back towards Stathos and put it off of him for the 4-2 lead.

Cavosie added his third goal less than four minutes later when a two on one developed down low. Doug Shepherd fed Cavosie across the slot and Cavosie tapped it home.

Andrew McPherson added a power-play goal with 12 seconds left to seal the 6-2 victory.

"It's a good feeling," said Cavosie about his hat trick. "It's exciting, but you [can't] get hung up on that. You just have to try not to revel in personal accomplishments and we have to buckle down. With 10 games left, we have to win and that's what we are looking at."

"I thought we did a good job killing penalties; they just killed penalties better because they got goals off of it, and that was a real backbreaker for us," said Princeton head coach Don "Toot" Cahoon. "We got beat and they took control of the game when they needed to. It wasn't a 6-2 game in terms of the way the flow of the game went."

"I thought we got stronger as the game went on," said Fridgen. "I thought we started out sluggish but we got stronger and in the third it certainly showed. We had the legs moving and getting involved and getting the loose pucks. I thought each line played outstanding tonight. We did a much better job finishing on our plays. As a team we were much more efficient tonight."

The Tigers (6-9-3, 4-4-3, .500 ECAC) will host Union on Saturday evening while the Engineers (14-7-2, 6-4-1, .591 ECAC) travel to take on co-third place holder Yale on Saturday.