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. – Not to be overlooked amid all that was revealed in the 2015 Three Rivers Classic is this: Having to play for 60 minutes against the Robert Morris Colonials can become unnerving for even a top-tier opponent.
It happened to No. 8 UMass-Lowell in Tuesday night's championship game, a program that has put a nationally-ranked team on the ice for 77 consecutive weeks and has been to the NCAA Tournament three times in the last four years, including a Frozen Four appearance.
RMU was protecting a 4-3 lead late in the third period when UMass-Lowell winger Adam Chapie moved with the puck in the Lowell end toward the net in an apparent attempt to get behind the cage and regroup.
What happened next almost had to be seen to be believed.
Chapie, one of the better players on one of the better teams in the nation, dropped a blind, backhand pass back up the ice, right onto the stick of RMU winger
Zac Lynch.
Lynch accepted the gift and immediately buried the puck behind Lowell goaltender Kevin Boyle for the goal that all but sealed the deal with 2:18 remaining in what eventually became a 5-3, Confluence Cup-clinching victory for Robert Morris.
Lynch insisted he wasn't tapping his stick on the ice or calling out to Chapie or otherwise trying to goad the Lowell alternate captain into such a horrific blunder.
"I don't know what happened,"' Lynch maintained. "I was just in the right place at the right time. He happened to give me a pass right on my stick.
"I was just as shocked as you are. I don't know what he was thinking. I don't know if someone behind me was yelling. He just put it right on my stick. I did not ask for that at all."
On Monday night against No. 14 Penn State, Lynch had scored at 12:59 of the third period by out-battling PSU center Ricky DeRosa for a rebound and more or less willing the puck into the net as the two players were falling to the ice and flailing away at one another in a desperate attempt to gain position. It was a critical goal for Robert Morris, which had watched Penn State trim a 4-1, third-period deficit and creep to within 4-3 prior to Lynch's resourceful, relentless answer.
The Colonials went on to win, 6-4.
The deciding goal against UMass-Lowell resulted from a confluence of skill, grit and puck luck at precisely the right time.
With the championship game tied, 3-3, approaching the midpoint of the third period, RMU converted a power-play opportunity when winger
Daniel Leavens deflected a pass from winger
David Friedmann across the top of the crease to winger
Brandon Denham, who finished from just off the far post. Leavens was trying to re-direct Friedmann's pass past Boyle but instead inadvertently found Denham, who had been providing net-front presence along with Leavens, for a tap-in.
"We're getting goals from all over the lineup," said Lynch, the Three Rivers Classic MVP with three goals in the two games and one of eight Colonials to combine for 11 goals overall (Denham also had a multi-goal tourney with two). "Some are pretty, some are pretty ugly, but a goal's a goal."
Denham's eventual game-winning goal against Lowell was the third in a run of four in succession after RMU had fallen behind, 3-1.
That shed some light on another Colonials' characteristic that ought not to be underappreciated.
"We can work our way into our 'A' game," head coach
Derek Schooley said of Tuesday night's comeback.
When that happens, it can become more than even the No. 8 team in the nation is capable of handling.
