Men's Hockey | 3/2/2019 11:30:00 PM
Box Score PITTSBURGH -- In a regular season peppered with close calls and near-misses, the
Robert Morris University men's hockey team finally experienced the other side of the coin on the final weekend before the Atlantic Hockey playoffs begin. And the result was a much-welcomed bonus: Home ice in the first round.
With a hard-earned 4-3 victory over Mercyhurst on Senior Night at the RMU Island Sports Center, plus a couple of favorable results on the out-of-town scoreboard, the Colonials leaped over both Army West Point and Holy Cross in the AHA standings, setting up a best-of-three duel with Holy Cross next weekend at home.
After winning both games against the rival Lakers in a season-closing home-and-home, RMU (12-20-2, 11-15-2 AHA) ended up as the
eighth seed in the 11-team league, insuring that they'd start the postseason at home for the ninth consecutive season.
"We knew that if we did our jobs, the dominoes could fall in line," said junior
Luke Lynch, whose power-play goal early in the third held up as the winner. "We just focused on taking care of our end of the deal and we did. Good things happened. We haven't had a lot of home games late in the year, so being at home (for the playoffs) will be good for us."
It's only natural for the Colonials to look ahead to the clean slate of the playoffs, but they appeared to find something this weekend, whether that be illustrated by the nine goals and 75 shots on net they generated during their second sweep of the season, or something more intangible.
"Something went our way for once," head coach Derek Schooley said. "We've been saying we're a better team, that we haven't gotten the breaks. ... It got a little nerve-racking, but things went our way. We've got to make sure we're playing for a long time now."
The challenge going forward will be to harness the good feeling of the past two days, but for now there's nothing wrong with reveling in a memorable Senior Night. Twelve RMU skaters recorded exactly one point, while junior goalie Francis Marotte made a season-high 40 stops to help stretch the Colonials' unbeaten streak (2-0-1) to a season-best three games.
RMU built leads of 1-0 and 2-1 in the first period, with junior Jacob Coleman and freshman defenseman Aidan Girduckis scoring goals to help the home team overcome any emotional hangover from a pregame ceremony that honored the five-man Class of 2019 -- Kyle Horsman, Brandon Watt, Eric Israel, Michael Louria and Alex Tonge.
But Stephen Ipri's solo effort on Mercyhurst's second of seven power plays tied the game in the second, followed by a disallowed goal for RMU junior defender
Sean Giles, who thought he jammed his own rebound into the net before the whistle sounded. Perhaps in an alternate reality, the Colonials would've spiraled downward from there, but not on this night.
At 8:19 of the second, Giles wired a point shot through Horsman's screen and past Lakers goalie Colin DeAugustine, putting the Colonials up for good with his second career NCAA goal. The game grew even sweeter for RMU early in the third, when Lynch ripped a one-timer off a Mercyhurst stick and into the net to help RMU capitalize on a major power play. The Colonials had that advantage because of Quinn Wichers' brutal cross-check to Lynch's neck as time expired in the second.
"We've been talking more about getting shots to the net the last couple of weeks and we definitely did a good job of that," said Lynch, who broke a six-game goal drought with his eighth tally. "Every player on the ice got results."
He wasn't lying. The Colonials had to dig deep into their roster this weekend, with No. 1 D-man Israel out of action with an upper-body injury. Junior
Alex Robert took much of that missing ice time, but first-year blueliners Girduckis,
Nolan Schaeffer and
Brendon Michaelian were thrown into the fire against a Mercyhurst team that whipped 81 shots at Marotte over the weekend.
The Lakers' push was strongest in Saturday's third period, when they were awarded four power plays and directed an incredible 38 shot attempts toward Marotte. There were blocks, there were battles, there were scrambles ... and there were saves, none bigger than Marotte's stretching denial of James Anderson's point-blank chance shortly after Matt Whittaker had cut RMU's lead to 4-3 with 6 1/2 minutes left.
"You had guys who aren't usually out there on the penalty kill," said Schooley, noting that Giles was lost to a game misconduct early in the third, further hamstringing the PK cause. On top of that, Robert was penalized with 2:35 remaining, leaving the back end largely in the hands of newcomers at crunch time.
"The way the guys stepped up and the sacrifice they had was tremendous," Schooley said. "It was ugly but it was effective. And your goalie has to be your best penalty killer."
Added Michaelian: "That's the time when we have to step up big and earn our stripes. I think we all did a good job of that. We just went out and got the job done."
While all this madness was playing out on Neville Island, Holy Cross lost to Air Force and Army tied Bentley. Combined with Army's loss Friday night while RMU rallied to beat Mercyhurst in overtime, the comeback was complete. Against the odds, the road-weary Colonials -- who had played nine of 11 away from home before this one -- won't have to leave the 412 area code for the next several days at least.
Senior Night or not, that's a feel-good story for this group. Leave it to the man who had just netted his first collegiate goal to grasp the significance.
"It seems like we finally hit our stride," Girduckis said. "It's good because we want to be hot right now. It's definitely a step in the right direction."
The Colonials, who have never lost a best-of-three series on home ice in eight tries, will open their first-round set against Holy Cross at 7 p.m. Friday. on Neville Island. Game 2 will be next Saturday, with Game 3 set for Sunday, if necessary.
