Brunswick, ME-The Castleton State College men's ice hockey team dropped a heartbreaker on the road at Bowdoin College 4-3 in ECAC East action.

Castleton would strike first as Steve Culbertson tallied his first goal of the season just 5:15 into the contest as the Spartans made good on their first power-play. Culbertson scored with less than 30 seconds remaining in teh power-play off assists by Jeff Alexander and Evan Romeo.

The Spartans would take the 1-0 lead into the first intermission, after killing off a pair of Polar Bear power-play opportunities in the final nine minutes of play.

Mike Corbelle would even the score 4:23 into the second period, again with the Polar Bears on the power-play. It was Corbelle's first of the season, assisted by Ryan Blossom and Ryan Leary. Just two minutes laters Corbelle would provide and assist on Leland Fidler's second goal of the season to put Bowdoin ahead 2-1. Craig Richardson evened the score with 1:09 remaining and both teams playing down a man, assisted by Romeo and Kirk Bolduc. It would appear the teams would enter the final period deadlocked until a Polar Bear short-handed tally with just 33 seconds remaining in the period, scored by Blossom.

Mike Westerman would tack on an insurance goal 3:46 into the final period, and it would prove to be the game-winner as Brandon Heck found the net for the third time this season to cut the lead to one with under five minutes to play. Castleton would pull its goalie for the final 1:15 of play, but could not find the equalizer as the Spartans fall to 1-3-1 (0-2-1 ECAC East).

Jeff Swanson made 27 saves for the Spartans, who return to action tomorrow at Colby for a 4:00 pm face-off. Bowdoin's Paul DeCoster stopped 19 for 3-1 (2-1 NESCAC).