PITTSBURGH -- The Robert Morris University men's hockey team has the same goal this season as every season: Win the Atlantic Hockey championship and qualify for the NCAA Tournament.

We're still a couple of months from knowing whether that will pan out. But as the Colonials return to conference play next week, they can look back at Saturday's performance at PPG Paints Arena against the No. 1 team in the country for reassurance that they can hang with any opponent they might face.

That was the primary takeaway for RMU after falling 5-2 to top-ranked St. Cloud State in the Three Rivers Classic third-place game. The Colonials (8-11-1) couldn't poke their noses ahead against the powerful, well-rounded Huskies (14-2-2), but they did spend 41 of the game's 60 minutes tied with the perennial contenders.

"I'm proud of our guys," RMU head coach Derek Schooley said to assembled reporters. "We were good today. You can build off that. We need, as a young team, something to springboard into the second half. That's what we got." 

The Colonials didn't get the result they've become accustomed to in this annual tournament. For the first time since 2013, they lost on Day 1 and had to skate in the consolation game at the home of the NHL's Penguins. The disappointment from Friday's up-then-down loss to eventual tourney champ Brown might not have completely dissipated with Saturday's game, but it was at least mitigated by a much more complete performance.

All you had to do was look at the box score to see the Colonials' pushback against a St. Cloud State team still sore about a five-goal loss to No. 14 Union the night before.

Midway through the first period, RMU's Nick Prkusic jammed in the deflection of an Aidan Spellacy shot to tie the game just 29 seconds after the Huskies took the lead. Then, early in the third, Nick Lalonde fired in a Prkusic feed to knot the score again, a strong response to the Huskies' jumping back on top just before the second intermission.

"Since I started playing college hockey, I noticed that there's so much parity," said Prkusic after his second two-point game of the season. "We can compete for sure. We're in those games and they're fun games to play in."



It didn't hurt that Francis Marotte kept the Colonials alive and well through a 15-shot second period for St. Cloud State. The only puck that beat RMU's junior goalie in the frame was the second rebound of a breakaway chance for Nick Poehling. After Poehling spectacularly received a lead pass with a diving effort, Marotte robbed him twice, but Kevin Fitzgerald slid the loose puck between defenseman Alex Robert's legs and under a fallen Marotte.

Following Lalonde's equalizer to cap a two-on-one rush, the Huskies' Robby Jackson netted a pair of goals six minutes apart, both from close range after RMU coverage mistakes. Those hiccups were costly, but they paled in the greater evaluation for Schooley.

"Those are good hockey players," Schooley said of the Huskies. "You can live with it if you play hard for 60 and don't win. We play like that, more often than not, we're going to have success. 60 minutes is something we haven't had. To get that (tonight), good for our guys."

And good for the younger Colonials who stepped to the forefront one weekend after the veterans carried the load in a split with league foe American International.

Five of RMU's six goals in the Three Rivers Classic were scored by freshmen, with sophomore Prkusic getting the other one. Freshmen Lalonde (two assists) and Spellacy (one assist) also got on the scoresheet, to say nothing of Grant Hebert's Friday hat trick, the first for an RMU freshman in 14 seasons. First-year defensemen Nolan Schaeffer, Brendon Michaelian, Geoff Lawson and Aidan Girduckis all saw the ice in the tournament, too.

Hebert, who was RMU's lone representative on the all-tourney team after a five-point weekend, nearly bagged a fourth 3RC goal on a third-period breakaway, but he skipped a forehand just wide. Moments later, Jackson scored his second goal to put the game nearly out of reach. Those are the margins when playing a team many consider to be Division I's best at midseason.

"I don't think people understand the magnitude of the team that we had here today," Schooley stated. "It's Duke in basketball. It's Alabama in football. It's the number one team in the nation and Robert Morris has 'em 2-2 with 10 minutes left. ... We play like that, we're going to be rewarded more often than not."

The Colonials will put that theory to the test next weekend, when they host AHA rival Bentley on Friday and Saturday at the RMU Island Sports Center. RMU trails first-place Air Force by just three points in the conference standings with 14 games to play.

Prkusic, who raved about his teammates' patience and prudence with the puck after Saturday's showdown with the country's top dog, is a believer in this team's ability to put it all together in the season's final two months. The simple fact that the team rebounded from a Day 1 letdown -- RMU led Brown 2-0 after Friday's first period before giving up four in a row -- showed him something positive.

"You just have to reset and play a full 60," Prkusic said. "I think we did a pretty good job at it."