Air Force weathers storm vs. RIT in Atlantic Hockey opener

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Air Force goalie Guy Blessing celebrates his penalty shot save. Photo courtesy of Paat Kelly / Pengo Sports via Air Force Athletics

Posted By: FlightChief October 20, 2022

Air Force took another step toward establishing a new trend on Thursday night.

The Falcons made a third-period lead stand up for the second game in a row, and as a result they opened Atlantic Hockey play with a 3-2 victory over RIT at Cadet Arena. It was the fourth consecutive one-goal game the teams have played over the past two seasons. Air Force has won the past three of those, including an AHA semifinal in March.

The Falcons had led going into the third period in their past four games, but Notre Dame rallied twice to tie them and Lindenwood scored the final five goals of the game to stun them last Friday.

Just as they did in a bounce-back win last Saturday, the Falcons had an answer for every Tigers threat, and sophomore goalie Guy Blessing was a huge part of that, especially at the end.

“We found a way to win,” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said. “We didn’t find a way to lose. We battled, we found a way.”

Added co-captain Luke Rowe, “We needed to prove we could play with a lead. We needed to prove we have pride in our game, we have grit in our game and we can play a full 60 minutes.”

Fellow co-captain Willie Reim, freshman Mason McCormick and junior Will Gavin scored goals for the Falcons (2-2-1). The goals were the fourth in the past three games for both Reim and Gavin.

Blessing stands tall in net

Making his second start of the season after working through a lower-body injury, Blessing slammed the door on the Tigers (3-2, 2-1 AHA) when he stopped Carter Wilkie, AHA’s reigning rookie of the year, on a penalty shot with 57 seconds left.

That opportunity came as a result of a challenge by RIT that a Falcons skater had covered the puck with his glove during a furious scramble at the Air Force net with just under a minute to go in the game. The challenge, which came at a stoppage with the game clock showing 2.5 seconds left, also rewound the clock and allowed the Tigers more time with an extra attacker.

Wilkie, who had four points in RIT’s first four games after a 34-point campaign as a freshman, tried to move Blessing off the right post, but the sophomore stood his ground for the save of the game, one of his 28 overall.

“Blessing was good,” Serratore said. “The way he played that penalty shot on Wilkie, he ate him up.

“It was consoling to me to see Blessing take another step.”

The final minute could have gone any number of ways, most of them bad for Air Force, but Blessing was a rock.

“We had to make it a little interesting for the fans,” Reim said. “We knew he was going to bail us out. Carter Wilkie is a great player, and we knew he was going to have a great move, but fortunately our goalie was a bit better on that one.”

Depleted D hangs tough for Air Force

After holding the Tigers to 16 shots combined in the first two periods, the Falcons endured a 14-shot onslaught in the third period. Compounding things, Air Force was without four regular defensemen, including both halves of their second pair – junior Sam Brennan and sophomore Mitchell Digby. Brennan was out with an undisclosed injury, while DIgby fell ill Thursday afternoon. In addition, senior Andrew Kruse and sophomore Drake Usher were out with injuries as well.

Those four are among the Falcons’ top seven defensemen. In their places were freshmen Chris Hidden and Brett Oberle as well as sophomore Jasper Lester.

“That’s Air Force hockey, next-guy-up mentality,” Rowe said. “Freshmen always seem to get time, to get opportunities to prove themself. Oberle did a hell of job, Hedden played unbelievable and Lester stepped up and played great.

“It’s going to make the decision tough on coaches when everyone is healthy.”

Air Force limited a team that had 18 goals in its first four games to just two.

“We see them every day in practice, and as a forward it doesn’t really matter if you’re going against our No. 1 D or No. 8, we know it’s going to be hard,” Reim said.

Gavin’s off-wing snap shot from the right circle just 1:07 into the second period gave the Falcons a 3-1 lead.

RIT countered with a goal with 2:47 left in the second when Simon Isabelle was left alone in the slot, took a pass from behind the net and skated in and eluded Blessing with a forehand-backhand move. That would be it for the offense despite the Tigers’ 14-3 shots edge in the third.

Fast and furious first period

RIT came out with plenty of energy to start the game and took an early lead just 5:25 in. Co-captain Kobe Walker redirected a point shot from Gianfranco Cassaro past Blessing.

To that point the Tigers had controlled much of the zone time, but the Falcons’ top line put an end to that with 9:19 to go.

Nate Horn controlled the puck behind the RIT goal and alertly found Reim between the circles, and the senior co-captain cleanly beat Kolby Matthews (17 saves) to tie it on just the Falcons’ second shot.

“They’re a really fast team, they forecheck with three, and we knew they were going to come out guns a blazing,” Reim said. “We had to weather that. Every time we play them they’re really pounding our D down low. That was our game plan, if we can weather it, we thing we have the conditioning we can start making our push.

“When we got that goal, the ice started to open up and we started to make some plays.”

Slightly less than 5 minutes later, freshman center Mason McCormick gave the Falcons the lead when he finished a 2-on-1 with Brian Adams. Adams made the play by pulling Matthews over to the left side of the net and then feeding McCormick who was steaming down the inside of the right circle. With that the Falcons dented Matthews for more goals in one period than he allowed in an entire game vs. Army West Point two weeks ago.

Notes: Senior center Ty Pochipinski returned to the Air Force lineup for the first time in nearly a year after undergoing leg surgery. … Senior wing Blake Bride also returned to the lineup after missing the past three games. … The teams conclude their series Friday at 7 p.m.

©First Line Editorial 2022

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