In another spirited hockey game that saw roster changes for both teams resulting from suspensions handed down in the morning by Atlantic Hockey, the host Air Force Falcons took advantage of RIT with two power-play goals and three tallies from defensemen in another one goal win.
Friday night’s hero Jordan Himley opened the scoring exactly at the one-minute mark with assists from Matt Serratore and new linemate Brady Tomlak — and then the defensemen took over the scoring for the Falcons.
“We have been working on getting pucks and bodies to the net, creating chaos,” noted Dan Bailey, who netted the game-winning goal with just less than 13 seconds remaining in the second period. ‘Giese’ [Evan Giesler] gave me a great screen in front of their goalie and I got a good bounce inside the far post.”
“We were focused on getting some quality shots,” noted defenseman Matt Koch, who notched his first career goal on the power play for the Falcons. “I got a great feed and never missed a one-timer so badly in my life. The miss seemed to freeze everyone so I had time to recover the puck toward the middle of the ice and pick my corner; from there the puck had its own set of eyes.”
This game had much of the same feel as the Friday night game as the Falcons jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead only to see RIT chip away, eventually tying the game with just under 90 seconds remaining in the second period, but once again, a last-minute goal proved to be significant as Air Force rallied to take the lead back for good on Bailey’s second goal of the season with just 12.4 seconds showing on the clock.
“Tonight was a good effort,” said Falcons coach Frank Serratore. “Last night I thought we played not to lose and tonight we battled to win. We never played without the lead all weekend and really battled as tough a team as we are going to see all year.”
Goalie Shane Sterrett came up with several big saves in the final period as he stopped 13 of his 26 total saves on the night in the final 20 minutes.
“This was a battle from start to finish,” said Serratore. “We really can only claim the goal as a positive in the second period where I thought they had has pinned pretty good, but we didn’t back down and made the plays we needed to in the third to take a big win.”
Air Force is now 4-0 in one-goal games this season while RIT has dropped four straight one-goal decisions in the past two weekends.
Atlantic Hockey roundup:
Robert Morris at Sacred Heart
Robert Morris broke open a tied hockey game with three unanswered goals in the third period to down the Pioneers by a 4-1 score. Brady Ferguson scored a pair of power-play goals for the victors while adding an assist and Timmy Moore closed it out with an empty-net goal. Goaltender Francis Marotte stopped 27 of 28 shots to earn his fourth win of the season for Robert Morris, which moved to 3-3-1 in conference play.
Holy Cross at Mercyhurst
Jonathan Charbonneau couldn’t quite bring back the Lakers on Friday night against Holy Cross, but his two goals and an assist helped lead the Lakers to a weekend split while posting a 4-2 win. Charbonneau opened the scoring in the first and helped give the Lakers a 2-0 lead by setting up teammate Kyle Dutra, only to see the Crusaders rally to tie at the end of two periods. Charbonneau scored to give the Lakers a 3-2 lead and Nathan Ferriero added a power-play goal to seal the win for the home team, who outshot the visitors by a 35 to 19 margin.
Canisius vs. Army West Point
Two-point nights from Tipper Higgins, Mike Preston, Michael Wilson and Dominic Franco saw the Black Knights quickly build a 3-0 lead over Canisius while goaltender Parker Gahagen made 16 saves in the first period to backstop Army to a comfortable lead and win to sweep the weekend series with a 5-2 win. Freshman Nick Hutchison tallied both goals for Canisius, including one on the power play, but the Griffins couldn’t overcome the early deficit.
