College hockey aficionado and Pittsburgh media personality Mike Prisuta contributes regular commentary on the RMU men's hockey team. This is his latest:

Pittsburgh, Pa. - The idea behind last weekend's line changes was offense, not defense. But junior center Spencer Dorowicz wound up providing both for Robert Morris.

Dorowicz and junior Timmy Moore played against Sacred Heart with Luke Lynch on the right side rather than Ben Robillard. Robillard played with left wing Matthew Graham and center Daniel Mantenuto, in the spot where Lynch had been.

Head coach Derek Schooley was looking for more secondary scoring.

But after Sacred Heart scored a goal 21 seconds into last Friday's series opener and then went on the power play 16 seconds after that, the seeds had been planted for a change of plan. Soon thereafter, the Moore-Dorowicz-Lynch line was asked to adopt a more defensive role in response to how well Sacred Heart's top line of left wing Evan Jasper, center Justin Danforth and right wing Jordan Minello was playing.

"I just felt it gave us the best opportunity to neutralize a very dangerous line," Schooley said.

The Colonials wound up sweeping the two-game series, 4-2 and 2-1.

The Danforth line, one of the Atlantic Hockey Conference's best, had accounted for 19 of the Pioneers' 34 goals through their first 15 games. The threesome wound up contributing two goals and two assists in its second crack at the Colonials but was never able to take over and dominate.

And Dorowicz was able to chip in a goal -- his second of the season tied Saturday night's game at 16:32 of the second period -- in addition to playing a pivotal role in his line keeping the Danforth line in check.

"I thought he was outstanding," Schooley said of Dorowicz. "I thought he had a tremendous amount of energy and generated a tremendous amount of chances (Dorowicz had 10 shots on goal in the series).

"I wish he could have buried a few more but he got the one when it counted, he was dangerous. He was getting scoring chances while shutting the other team's best line down."

Having the Dorowicz line match up against the Danforth line represented a philosophical shift for Schooley. He'd been more inclined in recent seasons to only go as far as to keep his fourth line away from an opponent's top line whenever possible.

When RMU had visited Sacred Heart on Nov. 12-13 and the Pioneers had the last change at home, Danforth's line played against RMU's top trio of Brady Ferguson between Alex Tonge and Daniel Leavens.

"We can't control the matchup on the road and we were fine with it," Schooley said. "We were fine with it again (last Friday night) and then 20 seconds later it was 1-0."

In the third and fourth games between the teams, this time at the 84 Lumber Arena, the Ferguson line accounted for four goals and was on the ice for five of the six RMU scored. And Dorowicz was once again the player the Colonials need him to be.

"It was his best weekend of the year," Schooley said. "He started off very slowly. He was scratched in the fourth game (on Oct. 22 at Canisius) because of how he had played in the first three. Ever since then he's gotten better and better."

"He could have handled that two ways. He could have accepted responsibility and understood that he had to be better. Or, he could have pouted and adopted a 'woe is me' attitude. He went with the first option.

"We had a couple of good conversations and I can't say enough about how he handled that like a professional, like you'd hope all players would handle it. He's taken big-time leaps in his play since then."

Robert Morris (8-4-2 overall, 6-3-1 AHC) visits Bentley (3-7-4, 2-5-3 AHC) this weekend (Friday 7:05pm, Saturday 4:05pm).

Dorowicz and his line probably won't match up against Bentley's Max French, a 2015-16 first-team all-AHC forward who has 15 points in 14 games this season.

But reliable, two-way play, penalty-killing, winning face-offs and dependability in a variety of situations will all still be on Dorowicz's plate.

And that's a plan that isn't likely to change.


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