Men's Hockey | 10/12/2017 2:15:00 PM

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. - They thought they were ready, that they knew what to expect.

Instead, the Colonials got a refresher course for openers and ended up learning the hard way.

They fell behind just 2:26 into the season.

They never did manage a lead.

And while Robert Morris' season-opening, 4-3 overtime loss on Oct. 6 at Niagara wasn't a disaster, the fast start to 2017-18 Robert Morris had been seeking in the end proved to be out of reach.

"I think we forgot how hard it is to win in Atlantic Hockey," head coach Derek Schooley assessed.

Particularly when you show up on the road preceded by your reputation.

That was apparently the case for a Robert Morris team that has been to the Atlantic Hockey Conference Final Four in each of the last four seasons, for a deep and experienced team that had been picked to finish second this season in a preseason poll of conference coaches.

Waiting at Dwyer Arena was a Niagara team that had finished 5-31-3 overall in 2016-17 (3-23-2 and last in the AHC). The Purple Eagles had been slated for another 11th-place finish in this season's coaches' poll.

The teams had last met at the conclusion of the regular season last season, a late-February series that ended with RMU completing a 6-2, 5-1 sweep, the latter an outdoor affair at Heinz Field.

Niagara embraced a new season and a new opportunity under new head coach Jason Lammers this time.

The Colonials, Schooley said, expected as much but at the same time wound up being caught a little off guard by Niagara's game.

"We were not expecting them to come out like they did," Schooley said. "We were chasing the game right from the start.

"'When you have the record we've had over the last four years and finished where we finished, you're going to get everybody's best game. It's up to us to realize that. We talked about it going into the weekend, I know the captains mentioned it."

And yet, "I think we were a little surprised," Schooley continued. "It took us some time to get to our game and we ended up chasing the scoreboard."

Schooley praised the Colonials' ability to generate chances off the rush, and he also liked what he saw from goaltender Francis Marotte and from an RMU power play that went 2-for-8.

The extra-attacker goal from junior winger Alex Tonge at 18:33 of the third period that forced overtime was another positive.

Schooley lamented his team's inability to finish more of the chances it generated. He also thought the Colonials were out-worked at the start of the game and again at the start of the third period.

In the end it was the Purple Eagles who got the decisive bounce (the OT winner was scored off junior forward Tanner Lomsnes' backside) and the desired result.

"They pushed the pace, worked extremely hard," Schooley said. "They made their bounces."

Robert Morris' planned response was a series of practices that would challenge the players' work ethic, Schooley said, in advance of this weekend's series at Canisius (7:35 p.m, Friday and Saturday, at the HarborCenter).  

"There's still tremendous confidence in our locker room," Schooley said. "But we have to get back to basics."


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