A season that has been an uphill battle now only serves as a warm-up for what should be a playoff war for Air Force.

The Falcons tied Robert Morris, 2-2, on Saturday to take three of four points in the Atlantic Hockey Conference series, but it wasn’t enough to give them a home quarterfinal series.

So while they earned a bye next weekend with Friday’s 1-0 victory in Pittsburgh, the Falcons will have to hit the road to play a quarterfinal series against Army West Point. It will be their first playoff series after two meetings in the AHC final four (2007, 2017), both of which Air Force won. The Black Knights swept the then injury-depleted Falcons in early November at Cadet Arena.

The teams finished in a three-way tie with Holy Cross for third place, but Air Force will be seeded fifth and Army fourth in the playoffs due to head-to-head tiebreakers among the three teams.

“Army’s got a heck of a good team,” Air Force coach Frank Serratore said. “The biggest thing is having two weeks off. I feel bad we’re not going to have a home series. The good news is our team has regrouped.”

Indeed. The Falcons (18-13-5, 13-11-4 AHC) finished the regular season on a 10-3-2 run after slipping to the AHC basement in a first half that was dominated by injuries. Entering the weekend the Falcons had 17 players miss 165 man games.

“If you’d have told me in the first half we would get a bye I would have bet you a plugged nickel,” Serratore said.

The Falcons earned the tie Saturday by rallying from an early deficit thanks to Alex Tonge‘s goal 4:07 into the game. It was set up by Colonials senior Brady Ferguson, who became the program’s all-time leading scorer with the primary assist.

Brady Tomlak and Phil Boje evened things up 9:08 into the second. Tomlak won an offensive zone face-off on the left dot back to Boje just inside the blue line, and the senior ripped a shot past Francis Marotte (27 saves). Held without a goal for 32 games, Boje now has one in each of the past two weekends.

Four minutes later, the Falcons struck again when Trevor Stone head manned the puck to Tomlak, who blazed down the left wing and found an opening in the left circle to get the puck to Marshall Bowery in the slot. The freshman wasted no time making it 2-1.

It stayed that way until 2:55 remained, when Ferguson tipped a shot a Timmy Moore shot past Billy Christopoulos (19 saves), a play that was reviewed to determine if Ferguson had hit the puck with a high stick.

The Falcons, needing a win and an extra point for a quarterfinal home series, pulled Christopoulos for the last minute and change and generated a couple of good scoring chances.

“I liked our game tonight,” Serratore said. “Our goal was to be a team that nobody wants to play in the playoffs, and I don’t think anyone is saying they want to play Air Force right now.

“Army-Air Force is going to be a classic series. I’d be shocked if it doesn’t go three games and all of them aren’t tight.”

Fortunately, there are two weeks to prepare. A luxury that was almost immaginable for the Falcons two months ago.

Notable

Junior forward Matt Serratore became the 10th player on the Falcons’ roster to skate in his 100th career game on Friday night. Evan Giesler (112 games) is the other junior in that club, along with the Falcons’ eight seniors.  … The Falcons made two lineup changes. Joe Tyran went in at forward in place of Giesler (shoulder). Pierce Pluemer skated in Giesler’s place on the top line with Tyler Ledford and Erik Baskin. Senior Jonathan Kopacka was in on defense in place of freshman Alex Mehnert.

Air Force’s three stars

1. Brady Tomlak. The sophomore center set up both Falcons goals, one by winning a face-off, the second with a nice pass to Marshall Bowery in the slot.
2. Phil Boje. The senior defenseman had a strong weekend in his zone, capped by a night in which he blocked a career-high nine shots, and got the Falcons on the board with a blast from the high slot.
3. Marshall Bowery. The freshman scored for the sixth time in the past seven weekends, giving the Falcons their only lead of the night.

Up next

The Falcons will play at Army West Point in a best-of-three Atlantic Hockey Conference quarterfinal series on March 9-11.