For Niagara University, it might not be time to panic.<\/p>\n
But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly time to start worrying.<\/p>\n
Chris Kushneriuk scored three goals — including the game-winner midway through the third period — as Robert Morris defeated the descending Purple Eagles 5-3 in front of 815 people at Dwyer Arena on Friday. <\/p>\n
Niagara has still not won: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 0-1-0 in league action and 0-8-1 overall. In fairness to the Purple Eagles, they have played four ranked teams, but looked sloppy at times in what — on paper at least — seemed to be a winnable game at home against a club that has struggled this season.<\/p>\n
The Colonials — who eliminated the Purple Eagles in last season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s College Hockey America tournament — improved to 1-2-0 in league play and 3-6-0 overall.<\/p>\n
The four goals were an outburst for Robert Morris, which had scored one goal or less in four of its last five games.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We came out and battled,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Colonials\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 coach Derek Schooley said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That was our theme this week. We wanted to compete for 60 minutes and I think, minus a few minutes in the second when they had a little momentum, we did a very good job. We worked hard and did the simple things.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had a complete team effort tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Understandably, Niagara coach Dave Burkholder was a little sour after the game and admitted he is losing a little patience with his young and inexperienced club.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It has to stop,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said of his team again falling behind early. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have to be a lot tougher mentally. We need to be a lot better. Five-on-five we lost. They had more spirit and energy. Hopefully guys will start playing up to their capabilities. We have a lot of guys that are not playing well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
After the game, Burkholder had a talk with his players in the locker room that was probably not for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was a little sarcastic and a little negative in the room,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But it is comical how poorly how some of our top guys are playing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Kushneriuk scored the eventual game winner when he jammed a loose puck past Niagara goaltender Andrew Hare during at madly chaotic scramble in front of the Niagara net to give the Colonials a 4-3 lead and himself the hat trick with just under nine minutes left in the third period.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a great shot by (Dave) Cowan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said of the decisive goal. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He (Cowan) was able to get it through some traffic. I just happened to be standing at the side of the net. I like to lurk around the net and try to find rebounds. The puck squirted out and I was able to kick it to my backhand and squeeze it in.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Scott Kobialko scored an insurance goal for a 5-3 RMU advantage at 16:42 when he jammed in a rebound past Hare.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the Colonials appeared to be sailing smoothly with a 3-1 lead late in the second period. But Niagara got rolling late in the period and dominated play. Its dominance paid off when Ryan Olidis took a pass down low from Chris Moran and flipped the puck over RMU goaltender Brooks Ostergard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shoulder with just 47 seconds left in the period which sliced the deficit to 3-2.<\/p>\n
Niagara tied it at three when Brent Vandenberg took a pass from Brendan Sheehan and backhanded a sizzling shot from the slot over Ostergood\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s glove to tie the game 3-3 at 6:24 of the third period before Kushneriuk scored the decisive goal. <\/p>\n
Nick Chiavetta scored the other goal for Robert Morris while Ostergard made 38 saves.<\/p>\n
Moran had a goal and an assist while Hare — a freshman playing in his first home game — recorded 29 stops for the Purple Eagles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For Niagara University, it might not be time to panic. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly time to start worrying. Chris Kushneriuk scored three goals — including the game-winner midway through the third period — as Robert Morris defeated the descending Purple Eagles 5-3 in front of 815 people at Dwyer Arena on Friday. Niagara has still not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9819"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}