Rutland, VT - The Castleton State College men's ice hockey team skated to an 8-3 victory over Saint Michael's College on a night the Spartans honored 11 seniors at the Rutland Regional Fieldhouse.

Senior forward, and Castleton's all-time leader in goals, assists and points tallied one goal and three assists to lead the Spartan attack.

Castleton raced out to a 2-0 lead with a pair of power-play goals from Omar Pacha and Eric Curtis respectively. Matt Rigtrup cut the Castleton lead in half, scoring with 6:41 remaining in the opening period.

Stuart Stefan put Castleton up 3-1 just 3:30 into the second period, and senior Craig Richardson tallied his first of the season, the game-winner, at 6:54 in to make it 4-1. Ryan Mero converted on the power-play to bring St. Michael's back to 4-2, but Kirk Bolduc and Lindsey Gullet finished the period with two goals to take a 6-2 lead into the second intermission.

Heck tallied just 1:39 into the final stanza, before Reave MacKinnon scored the final goal of the evening for the 7-12-2 Purple Knights.

Andy Brolsma, a senior, who was recently named one of 10 finalists for the Hockey Humanitarian Award picked up his first collegiate goal to wrap up the scoring in the Spartan win.

Jeff Swanson stopped 16 shots as Castleton improves to 12-8-2 overall and 8-6-2 in ECAC East play. Brendan Rimmer stopped 29 shots in the loss for the Purple Knights.

Castleton honored seniors Mike Anderson, Ryan Bartlett, Brolsma, Ross Carmichael, Marlin Froese, Heck, Jared Lavender, Jeff Lazeren, Richardson, Jay Seals and Swanson in a ceremony following the game.

Castleton will take on conference-leading, Norwich tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 pm in the Spartans' final regular season home game. Norwich enters play Saturday with 21 points, while Castleton trails in the standings by just three points at 18. St. Michael's will travel to Skidmore tomorrow for a 4:00 pm face-off.