One of the key questions entering the second half of the season for Air Force’s hockey team was who would step up and provide additional offense to put it over the hump.

The answer is the Falcons’ freshmen, a response that was emphasized in Saturday night’s 4-3, double-overtime victory against Robert Morris in an Atlantic Hockey America first-round playoff game.

Freshman Anthony Yu scored with 6:30 to go in the second extra session, pouncing on a rebound of a Chris Hedden shot right in front of Colonials goaltender Croix Kochendorfer.

“The season’s been up and down, and to me, a lot of the big games, the ones that really mattered, got away from us” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said on the postgame radio show. “It was a playoff game. We needed to win this game.”

Classmates Nick Sajevic and Sam Stitz, who also had two primary assists, earlier had scored tying and go-head goals, and two more first-year players, Will Dawson and Ren Morque added assists.

Hedden (two assists) and senior co-captain Clayton Cosentino (another tying goal and a helper) also had a big say in the win, as did goalie Guy Blessing, who stopped 34 of 37 shots.

Air Force has a power surge

The Falcons (15-19-3) have only hit four or more goals eight times this season, and they’ve won all but one of those. The holdout was a 4-4 draw with Army West Point two weekends ago on senior night.

What was different the past two games, including last Saturday’s 4-4 draw at RMU, was the power play came to life after scoring just one time in its previous 10 games. The Falcons got two PPGs in that game, and they matched that Saturday.

The teams went back and forth with RMU’s Tanner Klimpke scoring the first of his two goals and Sajevic scoring in the game’s first 11:27. The Colonials (10-19-5) took a 2-1 lead in the first intermission (of the four) on Michael Felsing’s power-play strike.

Cosentino drew the Falcons even a second time by finishing a 2-on-1 with Stitz during a five-minute power play. It was a heads-up play all the way around. RMU’s Mitch Deelstra initially received a two-minute penalty for boarding, but Air Force’s coaching staff challenged the call and won.

The goal was a milestone play for Cosentino. It was his 100th career point, the first Falcon to exceed that threshold in 10 years. It also gave the Falcons some bounce in their stride.

“I didn’t think we started to play loose and free, winning hockey until we scored that second goal on the 5-minute power play,” Serratore said. “We need to find other ways to score. We need our power play to help us.”

Falcons manage crunch time well

The Falcons took their first lead 4:57 into the third period when Stitz jammed in a rebound of Dawson’s shot, but it lasted fewer than six minutes because Klimpke, one of the Colonials’ play drivers, beat Blessing on snap shot.

AIR FORCE GOAL🚨
Courtesy of SAM STITZ!!

[4:57 of the third]
Assited by Will Dawson & Ren Morque

Air Force 3 | RMU 2 pic.twitter.com/0N8MQtvo5i

— Air Force Hockey (@AF_HKY) March 2, 2025

Things then stood 3-3 for more than 43 minutes. The Falcons dodged a bullet late in regulation when they had to kill off just their second penalty of the game.

Air Force didn’t have a period in regulation of fewer than 12 shots, and it totaled a season-high 54 for the game. Yet it managed just 11 in nearly extra overtimes while holding the guests to nine in that duration.

“I thought we were the better team tonight. We came from behind twice. We outshot them, we out power-played them. We managed the game pretty well in the overtimes,” Serratore said.

“Having to kill that penalty with four minutes left in regulation, that was huge. They score there and the ballgame is pretty much over.”

Two weeks after arch-rival Army foiled the Falcons’ senior night, Air Force gave its seniors (Blessing, Cosentino, Andrew DeCarlo, Michell Digby, Jasper Lester and Austin Schwartz) a proper sendoff with a lap around the rink after the handshake line.

“Being able to win on home ice for the seniors in their last game (here) was something special,” Serratore said.

As is moving on in the postseason.

Up next

The Falcons travel to Fairfield, Conn., to play second-seeded Sacred Heart in a best-of-three quarterfinal series on a bit of a roll. Air Force is 4-1-2 in its past seven games, four of which came on the road. The Falcons and the Pioneers teams split a series in January in Connecticut. Sacred Heart won the opener 3-0, then Air Force returned the favor the next night by the same score.

“It’s a team we’ve played there this year and had success there,” Serratore said. “It’s good to be going in somewhere we’ve had some success.”

©First Line Editorial 2025