The Hamilton College men's hockey team opened the final weekend of the regular season by playing to a 1-1 tie at Middlebury in NESCAC action Saturday afternoon in Middlebury's Kenyon Arena.

Box Score

Hamilton heads into Sunday's season finale at Williams with a chance to clinch the fourth seed – and host a quarterfinal – in the NESCAC Championship. The Continentals need a win or tie against the Ephs OR a Middlebury win or tie against Amherst to secure their first home playoff game since 2011.

Brandon Willett '18 scored Hamilton's goal and Evan Buitenhuis '18 made 20 saves for the Continentals, who are now 13-7-3 with an 8-6-3 NESCAC record. Middlebury heads into its final regular-season game 6-10-7 and 5-5-7 in conference play.

Willett put the Continentals up 1-0 with just over 11 minutes to go in the first, scoring his eighth goal of the season 23 seconds into a Hamilton power play. Conor Lamberti '17 took a shot from the left point that Willett tipped over the shoulder of Panther goaltender Liam Moorfield-Yee.

Middlebury tied the game just two minutes later at the 10:51 mark on the fourth goal of the year from Ronald Fishman. After taking a pass from Travis Stephens, Fishman snapped home a wrist shot through traffic from the top of the right faceoff circle.

Hamilton outshot the host Panthers 38-21 and nearly won the game in the final minute with a two-on-one break, when Truman Landowski '17 fed Scott Vazquez '16, but Vazquez' shot went wide. In overtime, Moorfield-Yee stopped Jon Carkeek '17 midway through the period and Hamilton had two chances late but Moorfield-Yee stopped Robbie Murden '17 on the left wing with seconds remaining and denied a shot at the buzzer off a faceoff. Rory Gagnon '19 hit the right post 15:01 into the second period.

Buitenhuis stopped a back-hander from the slot by Evan Neugold after a failed clear seven minutes into the second and denied Mark McLellan with a glove save midway through overtime.

Sunday's regular-season finale from Williamstown starts at 3 p.m. The Ephs are ranked fifth by USCHO.com and are sixth in the D3hockey.com poll.