Willie Reim scored two goals, including the game-winner on a power play with 5 minutes left, as Air Force edged Mercyhurst, 4-2, on Saturday night to sweep the teams’ Atlantic Hockey series at Cadet Arena.

The five-point weekend, which gave the Falcons three consecutive wins for only the second time this season, also put Air Force (10-16-2, 6-11-1 AHA) back in the conference playoff conversation. The Falcons pulled even with ninth-place Bentley with 18 points, and they cut Canisius’ lead for the eighth – and final – AHA playoff spot to four. Bentley lost in overtime to Holy Cross, while Canisius defeated RIT in OT on Saturday.

“The most important thing is we got five of the six points, and we deserved five of the six points,” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said. “Had we scored a power-play goal last night we would have got six of the six. Tonight, what was the difference? Our power play finally came through for us.

“Ironically, we shouldn’t have had to need it with all the chances we had, and pucks dropping on the goal lines. We had to overcome a negative penalty differential again. We took all that on, and we came to play.”

Air Force’s disaster relief plan

The Falcons are well on their way to recovering from a disastrous 1-10-1 midseason stretch that nearly buried any talk of the postseason. But the past three weekends have witnessed victories in four of six games, and narrow losses in the other two.

One of the biggest differences has been the Falcons have rediscovered their scoring touch. The midseason swoon included a nine-game skid with only 12 goals. Air Force has scored 22 goals in the six games since, and as a bonus, the power-play strike was the first in eight games, ending an 0-for-26 slide.

That marker was courtesy of Reim, and it marked the co-captain’s fourth goal in the past three games as well as the second time he gave Air Force a lead Saturday.

His first goal, with 9:25 gone in the second period came immediately after Air Force killed off one of its six penalties. He took a pass in the neutral zone and moved to the top of the right circle and rifled a shot past Mercyhurst freshman Owen Say (34 saves). That made it 2-1.

“Luke Robinson kept the puck, they tried to get it in, and somehow got it to me,” Reim said. “We were making a change, I was waiting for people, but the D gave me a lane to the net. It’s always fun when you can wind one up and fire it, and use their D as a screen and hope it goes in, and it did.”

The Lakers (8-17-3, 7-10-3) tied it for a second time just 1:23 into the third period when Mickey Burns scored on a sequence not unlike how Mercyhurst got its first goal.

Spotty puck management deep in the Air Force zone and an inability to clear the biscuit left it sitting between the circles, and Burns shot bar down on Maiszon Balboa (19 saves), who had almost no chance. The Lakers, who are tied for fourth with Holy Cross, took the game’s first lead 6:07 in on a similar play. They won a puck battle below the goal line and the puck caromed out to the high slot, where Garrett Dahm hammered in past Balboa with no one within 10 feet of him.

Putting the fight back in the Falcons

Those were blips on the radar, however, for the Falcons, who won battle after battle for the puck and generally set the game’s tone.

“We were very difficult to play agains the entire weekend,” Serratore said. “We were very smartly physical. I would even call it tenacity on steroids as opposed to overtly physical.

“Every time there were races to pucks, if we didn’t win them, we got into them. They didn’t like that. They wanted to play more of a shinny game, and we didn’t allow that to happen. I thought we were very connected to our play.

Reim’s power-play goal was an effort that got contributions from the entire unit. Luke Rowe eventually faked a shot, passed to Koch above the right circle, and Koch’s shot was tipped by Reim in front of Say.

“Our power play had been getting looks, but it hadn’t been going in,” Reim said. “Clay (Cosentino) did a great job trying to relieve pressure for our flanks, and that kind of collapsed it. Then it was a good play from Rower to Kochie, and Kochie has one of the sneakiest shots out there. He can get it by without getting it blocked, and he was able to do it. I was just lucky enough to get a piece of it.

“It was good to get a power-play goal that meant something.”

Freshman class making its presence felt

Reim’s tallies were sandwiched by a pair of goals from a surging freshman class.

The first was a highlight-reel score by defenseman Chris Hedden, who walked around a Mercyhurst defender and beat Say short side, over his glove. That tied the score the first time with 4:13 left in the first period.

“You see a lot more confidence in Chris Hedden, Holt Oliphant, Mason McCormick,” Rowe said. “They’ve been animals. I think they gained that experience and learn the little things they need to do, the plays they need to make. They’re reading the game better than they may have the first couple months of the year.

“That goal from Hedds was awesome, McCormick gets a goal last night and today, and Holt Oliphant generates so many chances. And our other two freshmen (defenseman) Brett Oberle and (forward) Liam Hansson, they’re studs, too.”

The final goal was an empty-netter by McCormick, who had just won a draw on the left dot in the Air Force zone. That tally was McCormick’s third in three games and sixth of the year.

His line – with Austin Schwartz and Oliphant – played big and important minutes all game.

“You can tell which players are the coach’s favorite players by who he puts out the most,” Serratore said. “It was telling when we’re taking a 6-v-5 face-off in our zone and it’s not Cosentino out there, who is a good player, it’s not (Andrew) DeCarlo, or (Jake) Marti, or (Ty) Pochipinski. It was big No. 13. The coaches talked about it, and I said, ‘This is what my gut is telling me.’

“He didn’t let me down all weekend. We had a lot of really good players, but none better than Mason McCormick this weekend.

This Maiszon built a brick wall

Behind it all was Balboa, the junior who hadn’t won an NCAA game in two and a half seasons and hadn’t made a start until the calendar flipped to 2023. Now he has three wins in a row.

“Balboa’s greatness was he made some timely saves,” Serratore said. “He didn’t have to make a lot of them, but he made some tough ones that were very timely.”

Balboa is finding his rhythm, and he’s proving to be a huge help to the Falcons’ defense.

“He’s playing the puck like an animal,” Rowe said. “He keeps coming out and helping the defenseman, making the saves he’s needs to make. We couldn’t be happier. ”

And happier was the operative word postgame.

“I couldn’t be happier right now,” Serratore said. “Our team deserved to win, and they did win. We have a goalie who came out of the bullpen that’s won three games in a row right now. You can’t ask for more from these guys.”

©First Line Editorial 2023