The good news? Senior goaltender Austin Park made his first career start for Air Force on Friday night.

The bad news? His teammates didn’t do him a lot of favors, taking seven penalties and surrendering two power-play goals in a 5-2 Atlantic Hockey loss to Holy Cross at Worcester, Mass.

Park was thrust into action because of injuries to starting goaltender Guy Blessing and backup Maiszon Balboa that were serious enough that neither even made the trip east. The fourth goalie who started the season on the Falcons’ roster, freshman Aaron Randazzo, left the team during the fall. That combination of events meant that freshman Ray Piccard, who plays for Air Force’s club hockey team, was called up and was Park’s lone backup.

The loss was the eighth in a row for the Falcons (6-13-2, 2-8-1 AHA), who are winless in nine. Their most recent victory came more than two months ago, on Nov. 12, when Blessing shut out Bentley in a 2-0 triumph at Cadet Arena.

Air Force’s power outage continues

The game took a turn for the worse for Air Force when it could not convert on a 5-on-3 power play late in the first period shortly after junior Will Gavin had tied the score with his team-high seventh goal. It was symbolic of the special-teams issues AFA has experienced of late.

Overall, the Falcons went 0-for-6 on the power play, and they have just four man-advantage tallies in their past 10 games.

The Crusaders (6-13-2, 5-7-1) got a goal from Devin Phillips with 37 seconds to play in the first to take the lead for good. Jack Ricketts scored his team-high eighth and ninth goals for Holy Cross, the first during a first-period power play, and the second midway through the third period.

Clayton Cosentino redirected a Willie Reim shot on a 6-on-4 power play with 2:25 to play in the game. The tally was sophomore’s fourth of the season.

It was the Falcons’ third loss to Holy Cross during the current skid. Air Force has scored four goals in those three games, and a total of 11 during the eight-game slump.

Park finished with 26 saves, while Jason Grande made 30 for Holy Cross.

MORE FALCONS: Click here for information on Friday’s game.

Notes

Air Force also was without forwards Brian Adams, Lucas Coon and Ty Pochipinski because of injuries. … The Falcons and Crusaders finish the series on Sunday at 2 p.m. MST. The game can be streamed on FloHockey.tv. AM 1300 has the radio broadcast.

Volkening selected to AHA Hall of Honor

Goaltender Andrew Volkening, who helped Air Force to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (2007-09), is the first Falcons player selected to the Atlantic Hall of Honor. Volkening, the conference’s all-time wins leader with 69, was a two-time All-Regional selection. He finished his career with a 69-39-14 record, an AHA-record 15 shutouts and a 2.19 goals-against average (third in league history). For more on Volkening, please click here.

©First Line Editorial 2023