BOWLING GREEN, Oh. - Despite taking a 1-0 lead into the third period, the Robert Morris men's hockey team dropped a road matchup with No. 7 Bowling Green Tuesday evening at Slater Family Ice Arena, 2-1.
The loss moves the Colonials to 5-3 overall on the season.
The Colonials escaped a close call on an early Falcons power play Tuesday afternoon when Will Cullen collected a cross-ice pass at the left circle but sent his effort just high of a wide open net.
Despite a solid effort on the first kill and some good looks on their own power-play minutes later, RMU continued to tempt fate with the BGSU man-advantage.
Hooking and holding and calls on RMU kept the Falcons up a man for four more minutes, however the Robert Morris PK unit stood tall, coming up with a number of big blocks to keep things scoreless. Despite the penalties, the Colonials continued to outwork BGSU for much of the play at even strength, denying the Falcons odd-man rushes or quality scoring chances throughout much of the game.
A fourth kill to start the second for RMU led to a few good looks of their own. Nick Jenny and Gavin Gulash buzzed the net off of a solid shift, nearly burying chances after some good pressure kept Bowling Green hemmed in their own zone, but Zac Rose stood tall in goal.
RMU steadily built momentum with each successive kill, finally breaking the deadlock after an extended shift in the offensive zone as the middle frame was winding down.
After working it up high on the cycle, a seeing-eye point shot from Grant Hebert made its way through a maze of bodies and past Rose to put RMU up 1-0, giving Hebert his team-leading 10th point of the season.
However the Colonial carousel to the box continued, unfortunately, as the Falcons opened up the final frame with a brief 5-on-3 PP despite trailing 1-0 on the score board and 20-15 in shots on goal.
Another great kill on the two-man advantage nearly had RMU out of danger, but the sixth crack on the power play proved to be the charm for the Falcons as Connor Ford tied things up with a hard, low shot from the right circle.
Cullen put BGSU up 2-1 less than three minutes later, slipping a backhand shot five hole on Noah West to give the Falcons their first lead of the night.
One final power play gave the Colonials a last chance to tie things up, however they ended the day 0-5 on the man-advantage.
SCORING PLAYS
Hebert, 16:22, 1st - Assists: Michaelian, Addamo
Ford, 00:36, 3rd - Assists: Cullen, Kruse
Cullen, 3:13, 3rd - Assists: Wells, Barber
QUICK HITS
#7 BGSU is highest-ranked RMU opponent since facing #1 St. Cloud State on 1/5/19…Grant Hebert recorded his team-best 10th point on the afternoon…Noah West stopped 33 of 35 shots on goal for the Colonials…RMU power play finished 0-5 and falls to 8-35 (22.8%) on the year
QUOTABLES
"I loved our game for 55 minutes, but unfortunately 55 isn't 60. We got away from what was working for us for five minutes, and a very skilled team made us pay. I thought we won the battle at 5-on-5, but they won it on special teams and that ended up being the difference. I'm proud of the way we played for the most part, and there's some real positives to take away from it for us, but we needed to close that game out. It's about playing smart and playing a mature game and at times we got away from that." - Head Coach Derek Schooley
NEXT UP
The Colonials have a quick turnaround before a busy weekend that sees them travel to Lewiston, New York for a Thursday afternoon clash with Niagara before returning home for a two-game series against RIT Saturday and Sunday evening at Clearview Arena.
