HAMDEN, Conn.— “He’s a freshman,” the faithful fans in gold chanted about their new star of the Quinnipiac Bobcats (2-3-1). But Nick Pisellini is a fresh-faced 18-year-old from Itasca, Ill., who has already made an impression on QU hockey and continued to do so in the Bobcats’ scoreless overtime tie to Cornell (1-0-1) Saturday night at the TD Banknorth Sports Center.

At the 10:31 mark in the second, things got interesting for the Bobcats when Pisellini (2-1-1) took on Evan Barlow on a Big Red penalty shot. Barlow won a face-off and got through QU’s defense. He then broke away towards Pisellini but Bobcat Brett Dickinson tripped him from behind as he was taking the shot.

Pisellini then had to square off against the Big Red senior in front of the 3,422 in attendance. He pressured Barlow as he skated down from the right-hand side. Though Barlow shot to the low right corner of the net, Pisellini stifled the attempt.

“I was just crossing my fingers,” Head Coach Rand Pecknold said. “That was the turning point of the game right there. That’s the game right there.”

Pisellini, who was ranked third nationally in save percentage (.955) going into Saturday’s contest, didn’t flinch as he caught the blast from Barlow.

“You’re always taught growing up to let the player make the first move and react to it so that’s what I tried doing,” Pisellini said. “[Barlow] opened up for a shot and I went down on it.”

In keeping with the theme of the weekend, the Bobcats accumulated 12 penalties to the Big Red’s seven.

“I’m hoping it’s just a bad weekend,” Pecknold said. “We took some really stupid penalties and we need to get away from that.”

Despite the penalties, Pecknold saw other improvements.

“The guys did a good job up front,” he said. “[The penalty kill] was the bright spot of our weekend. It was excellent.”

In fact, Quinnipiac stopped a five-on-three Cornell advantage with less than two minutes to play in overtime.

The Bobcats made Big Red goalie Ben Scrivens work in the first period, as Quinnipiac outshot Cornell 11-4. Senior David Marshall put the most pressure on Scrivens early on as he and Byran Leitch went two-on-one. However, Marshall’s shot missed on the cross and Leitch was unable to finish it off.

The Bobcats came close to going ahead in the third, with an Eric Lampe breakaway but the shorthanded shot fired over the net. Pecknold, who wouldn’t name names, said some Bobcats are in an offensive slump.

“Some of my top offensive players were just bad both nights,” Pecknold said. “They won’t be that way this year and we need them to play better.”

Junior Brandon Wong nearly netted the game-winner with less than 30 seconds left in the game. However, his attempt fell short as Long added to his 23 saves.

“This weekend we didn’t get our goals and we’re a high-scoring team,” Marshall said. The senior added: “The guys are gonna find the back of the net. It may be a fluke this weekend.”

Although Pisellini has had four stellar outings with the Bobcats, Pecknold is hesitant to proclaim him as the number one guy.

“He played great on the weekend but I always let things play out. Right now, Nick, he had a big weekend. There’s no question,” the coach said.

Saturday’s scoreless tie is the first in the history of QU Men’s Ice Hockey.

QU has little time to rest, as they take on ECAC 2007-08 league champions Princeton on Tuesday. But, if tonight’s game foreshadows Tuesday’s match up at all, the Bobcats should put up a good fight since Cornell barely edged the Tigers 1-0 Friday night.