It’s been a rough start to the season for Army West Point.
Going into last weekend’s series with Canisius, the Black Knights were 0-8 with losses to North Dakota, Union, and Bemidji State as well as to some of Atlantic Hockey’s top teams in Sacred Heart, Rochester Institute of Technology, and archival Air Force.
Several games followed the same script: The Black Knights would take a lead, often coming from behind to do so, but surrender a late goal or two and end up on the wrong side of the scoresheet. Examples:
– Against Bemidji State in the Icebreaker tournament, Army West Point led 2-1 in the third before allowing a pair of goals, including the game-winner with less than a minute to play.
– At Air Force, the Black Knights fought back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the game on John Driscoll’s goal with 53 seconds to play, only to fall in overtime, 4-3.
– Last Friday against visiting Canisius, Brian Riley’s team trailed 3-1 after the first period, went ahead 4-3 in the third, but allowed three late goals to fall, 6-4.
Saturday finally saw a breakthrough for Riley and the Black Knights, which found themselves in familiar territory, leading by a goal in the third period.
This time was different. Riley’s team, which features 20 freshmen and sophomores and only 10 upperclassmen, held down the fort for the 2-1 win.
“Until you win a close game, you don’t have that to draw upon,” said Riley, in his 20th season at West Point. “You have to learn how to win. On Saturday, we took a step.”
The deja vu moment wasn’t lost on Riley.
“It was strange, we were in the same position as we were on Friday, the same position we’ve been in a couple of other times,” he said.
“Friday, we had the lead in the third and we didn’t handle it well. It wasn’t winning hockey on our part.”
Against Air Force the prior weekend, it was more of the same.
“We played an unbelievable seven minutes to tie, we were feeling really good,” said Riley. “Air Force played a very deliberate game in the overtime. They just sat and waited for us to make a mistake, and we tried to make a play at the blue line, and it cost us.
“It’s been a learning process. We learned that we can come back, we’ve done that. Saturday, we learned how to win.”
That victory was the first career win for junior goaltender Evan Szary, who has split time this season with senior Gavin Abric.
The Black Knights’ power play (20.4%) has been a bright spot with goals hard to come by so far this season.
All-conference players Joey Baez (eight points) and Max Itagaki (six points) lead the way on the scoresheet, with rookie Brent Keefer chipping in four goals, second on the squad.
Like Air Force, Army West Point can’t make use of the transfer portal, or give players a fifth year of eligibility due to the pandemic.
“We can’t reload like most schools,” said Riley. “We have to rebuild and go through those cycles. I would have loved to have guys back for another year, that experience is invaluable. We’re getting experience the old-fashioned way, by going through the ups and downs.”
Riley said that he’s happy with his team’s effort so far, but effort often isn’t enough.
“Effort and compete are different,” he said. “You can have the effort but the compete level is using it to win battles, one-on-one battles,” he said. “The team that wins those battles is going to win the game. That’s something that takes getting used to for young players moving up from juniors to college.”
The Black Knights have a Tuesday game at Holy Cross, and then will participate in the Turkey Leg Classic, hosted by UMass Lowell and Merrimack.
After that, 17 of the Black Knights’ 20 remaining games will be in conference play. Last season, Army West Point also got off to a slow start, but ended up finishing fifth in the league.
“We were 1-7 to start last year,” said Riley. “We hope to be playing our best hockey coming down the stretch, and the more experience we get, the better our chances.”
