Lewiston, NY – As he sat in an adjacent room to where his club was getting ready for Friday night’s game, Air Force coach Frank Serratore was lamenting about the injuries to his club.
And used some colorful language to do so.
In a way, one could not blame Serratore, who lost a forward in the first period of the Falcons’ last three games. That can screw up lines bigtime.
Well in this one at least, the Falcons persevered, as Evan Giesler and Brady Tomlak scored in the second period and Air Force looked like it was in good shape. But the Falcons had to withstand a late Niagara rally to hold for a 4-2 victory in front of 708 fans in Dwyer Arena.
Air Force improved to 7-9-2 in the Atlantic Hockey standings.
“This team, (Niagara), let us put it in perspective, they come out to Colorado Springs in December and manhandled us,” Serratore said. “Tonight, we got the lead, persevered. When they came back, we found a way to get that next goal. We overcame a lot of adversity, but it was a lot of self inflicted adversity.
“This is a game that could have gone either way, but we happened to get the bounces.”
Niagara’s glossiness, which was apparent during a surprising first half of the season, has been fading lately during losses in nine of its last 12 games.
“I thought Air Force played a great road game, and kind of outlasted us,” said Niagara coach Jason Lammers, whose club slipped to 10-9-2 in conference action. “Obviously they killed off a lot of penalty killing situations. I am impressed with our guys and how they continue to grow and believe in our system. I think we are playing our best hockey right now, although we are not getting the product that we want.”
A key for the Falcons was their prowess on the penalty kill, as they killed off nine of 10 Niagara opportunities.
“Two parts of our game we have to feel good about is goaltending and our penalty killing,” Serratore said. “One of the things about the penalty kill is, you better be dialed in and playing with a sense of urgency. Now we need to apply that to the rest of our game as well.”
The game was uneventful until midway through the third period when Niagara made a ballgame of it.
With Air Force leading 2-0, Niagara’s Sean King wrapped around behind the Air Force net and jammed the puck past Air Force goaltender Billy Christopoulos to get Niagara back in it at 2-1 with 11:08 remaining. But just under three minutes later, freshman Walker Sommer scored an insurance goal shortly after King’s. The goal was set up when Niagara defenseman Niko Kovachis sent a careless blind pass right in front of the Niagara net, were Sommer eagerly grabbed the gift and put it in.
But Niagara did not quit, and again closed the gap to one when defenseman Noah Delmas blasted a juicy rebound in the slot past Christopoulos to make it 3-2 before Air Force’s Kyle Haak scored an empty net goal.
After the game, Lammers reflected on his club’s current slump.
“We are evaluated always on the scoreboard,” he said. “Our process is better than we were getting the product and the wins.”
NOTES: Niagara’s Tanner Lomsnes got hurt against Robert Morris on January 9 and is expected to be out at least one more week, and possibly two…….Delmas entered this weekend with the 23 points, tied for third highest in the nation…..Air Force is now 27-8-5 after Jan. 1 the past two seasons……The Falcons’ home game against Sacred Heart on Jan. 20 was postponed due to the government shutdown.
