Men's Hockey | 3/7/2019 12:19:00 PM

PITTSBURGH -- For the eighth time in eight seasons, the Robert Morris University men's hockey team will open the Atlantic Hockey playoffs with a best-of-three home series at the RMU Island Sports Center.

This year's opponent is a familiar one, as the eighth-seeded Colonials will clash with ninth-seeded Holy Cross, marking the third consecutive postseason in which the two teams will face off. 

COLONIAL HOCKEY PREVIEW
No. 8 seed ROBERT MORRIS (12-20-2, 11-15-2 AHA)
vs. No. 9 seed HOLY CROSS (10-19-5, 10-14-4 AHA)

Friday, March 8 at 7:05 p.m.
Saturday, March 9 at 7:05 p.m.
Sunday, March 10 at 7:05 p.m. (if necessary)

LIVE VIDEO via Stretch Internet ($) 
LIVE AUDIO via ESPN Pittsburgh
LIVE STATS via Sidearm
TICKETS via Ticketmaster

LAST TIME OUT
For just the second time this season, the Colonials swept an opponent in a two-game series, downing Mercyhurst 4-3 on Senior Night last Saturday on the Island. Junior Luke Lynch scored the game-winner on a third-period power play, while classmate Francis Marotte stopped a season-high 40 shots in helping RMU stretch its season-long unbeaten streak to three (2-0-1). Senior Alex Tonge stayed hot over the weekend with a five-point performance that included a Friday night hat trick in Erie, his second of the season.

HISTORY LESSON
While this season's series with Holy Cross couldn't be closer, down to a dead-even goal differential, the Colonials have had the decided historical edge over the Crusaders in the AHA playoffs. Two years ago, RMU swept Holy Cross in a home quarterfinal series; last March, the Colonials hit the road in another quarterfinal and took care of business in two games.

Both senior Tommy Nixon and freshman Erik Gordon earned their only shutouts of the season against RMU; Marotte has one of his two clean sheets against the Crusaders. Each team scored seven times in the season series, with RMU netting five in its only multi-goal comeback win of the season Feb. 15. The two teams have played 12 times in 14 months, eight of which have been RMU wins.

OPPOSITION RESEARCH
Holy Cross will play a road series in the first round for the first time since the AHA adopted its current playoff format in 2009. The Crusaders fell a couple of spots on the season's final weekend, but they still roll into the playoffs playing their best hockey. Since late January, Holy Cross is 6-3-2, including wins against a trio of top-five AHA finishers in R.I.T., Bentley and Air Force.

The Crusaders earned a split at Air Force on the season's final weekend, following up a 2-1 overtime win Friday with a 4-2 loss Saturday. Nixon made 48 saves over the weekend, finishing the year with five consecutive starts after playing just four times in the previous four months. Holy Cross leading scorer Mitch Collett finished well with three points (1g, 2a) in the series.

TRUE FACT
RMU has won seven consecutive best-of-three Atlantic Hockey series, spanning the past five seasons. The Colonials' last loss in an AHA set was in 2013, when UConn swept them in a quarterfinal series.

TALE OF THE TAPE



THEY SAID IT
"It's going to be exciting because obviously we know each other very well. I'm sure they'll make some adjustments and we'll do that, too, but it comes down to execution at this time of the year." - Head coach Derek Schooley on preparations for Holy Cross



"We've been putting down the building blocks fairly well for the last four to six weeks. We've really come together as a team." - Lynch on a home stretch that saw RMU go 3-2-1 after a weeklong break

(Watch our full postseason preview below.)



KNOW BOBBY MO
• RMU's late-season push for home ice was aided by a wild 5-4 overtime win March 1 at Mercyhurst. The win marked just the second time this season RMU has prevailed after trailing through two periods. They are 2-20-1 in such situations, not counting a rally from two goals down in the first to beat Holy Cross on Feb. 15.

• Senior Alex Tonge is the 11th Colonial to reach 100 points for his NCAA career. With 133 points, he's risen to sixth place on RMU's all-time scoring list, three points shy of Chris Margott '09 for fifth. Tonge has passed Greg Gibson '16, Denny Urban '11, David Friedmann '16, Scott Jacklin '15 and Daniel Leavens '17 this season. Tonge is currently the No. 8 active scorer in the nation.

• Junior goalie Francis Marotte has made quite the impact in two-plus years at Robert Morris, already establishing himself as the winningest goalie in program history, with 46 NCAA victories to his name. Entering the weekend, the Montreal-area native also has the Colonials' all-time best goals-against average (2.60), along with the fifth-best save percentage (.916) and second-most shutouts (7), one behind Terry Shafer '16.

• Thirty-three of RMU's 89 goals have been scored by underclassmen, with 25 of those scored by freshmen. Seven of the Colonials' 10 freshmen skaters -- Justin Addamo, Geoff Lawson, Nick Lalonde, Aidan Spellacy, Grant Hebert, Kip Hoffmann and Aidan Girduckis -- have scored their first NCAA goals, while nine of 10 have at least a point. Addamo has seven goals, tying him for third on the team, while Lalonde and sophomore Nick Prkusic are one behind with six each.

• Don't miss the opening minutes of an RMU game, because so often the tide has turned at the start. While the Colonials have scored the first goal just 10 times in their 34 regularseason games, they are 6-3-1 in those games. Otherwise, RMU has six wins and a tie (6-17-1) in the 24 times they've conceded the game's first tally.

• The Colonials have come up aces at the faceoff dot, and it's been a team effort. RMU ranks 15th in the country in faceoff win rate at 52 percent, with five of the its six qualifying players converting at a rate of 50 percent or better. Daniel Mantenuto, Hebert, Lynch, Spellacy and Michael Coyne are all above that line individually.

• After going their first nine games of the season without a shorthanded goal, the Colonials have scored six since, the sixth-most in NCAA D-I. Lynch has two of those, giving him five for his career; that's the third-most among active Division I players. Mantenuto has his first two NCAA shorties this season, with Jacob Coleman and Israel accounting for the other two.

• Robert Morris welcomed 11 freshmen this season, making up the second-biggest first-year group in program history (12 - 2008-09). The last time RMU reached double digits in newcomers, with the 2012-13 team, that class of 10 went on to average 22 wins per season.

SCHOOLEY FILE
The only head coach in program history, Derek Schooley is in his 15th season behind the RMU bench. Under his guidance, the Colonials carry an overall record of 243-245-63 and a reputation for championship-level success in Division I men's hockey.

Schooley led the Colonials to back-to-back Atlantic Hockey regular season titles in 2014-15 and 2015-16 and a postseason AHA title/NCAA tournament berth in 2013-14. Over the past six seasons, Schooley's Colonials have averaged 21 wins per year and have consistently placed 20-plus student-athletes on AHA all-academic teams.

FIFTEEN YEARS OF HOCKEY
Our season-long countdown of the 15 greatest games in program history arrives at No. 3, as we recall a sudden-death turning point in RMU's most memorable men's hockey spring:



HONOR ROLL
The Colonials have earned six Atlantic Hockey awards this season:
• Marotte (Goalie of Week - Nov. 19-25)
• Israel (Defensive Player of Week - Nov. 19-25)
• Israel (Defensive Player of Week - Dec. 24-30)
• Marotte (Goalie of Month - December)
• Lalonde (Rookie of Week - Jan. 14-20)
• Tonge (Player of Week - Feb. 10-16)

HALL PASS
Denny Urban '11 has become the third men's hockey player to be inducted into the Robert Morris Athletics Hall of Fame. Urban, who scored an incredible 112 points (28 goals, 84 assists) from the RMU blue line, joined Chris Margott '09 and Nathan Longpre '11 in achieving this prestigious all-sport honor.

ON THE AIR
For the sixth straight season, all Colonials home games will be broadcast locally on 970 ESPN, or online at espnpgh.com. Tim Benz (play-by-play) and Mike Prisuta (analysis) return as the broadcast duo at RMU Island Sports Center. Additionally, Matt Gajtka will have an audio play-by-play call for select road games on Facebook Live, with the RMU men's hockey Facebook page hosting those.

NEXT UP
The winner of this series will go on to face one of the top three finishers in Atlantic Hockey -- American International, Bentley and Air Force -- in a best-of-three quarterfinal series next weekend. The AHA playoffs re-seed after every round, so results from the Niagara-Canisius and Mercyhurst-Army first-round series will dictate matchups. If the Colonials advance, they will be on the road for the duration of their postseason.