Air Force hockey gets bye with win or tie
Air Force took a big step toward a first-round playoff bye with a 4-2 win over Robert Morris on Friday night at Cadet Ice Arena.
The Falcons (15-11-6, 13-7-6 Atlantic Hockey Association) jumped on the Colonials (18-10-5, 13-8-5) early and were sharp in collecting their third consecutive victory.
The win avenged a 3-2 Falcons loss at Robert Morris on Oct. 17 in which Air Force blew a 2-0 lead. It also moved Air Force into a tie for second place in the AHA with Holy Cross. The Falcons can earn a first-round bye and the chance to host a quarterfinals best-of-three series with a tie or win against Robert Morris tonight.
“I told the guys, ‘Way to take care of business,’” Air Force coach Frank Serratore said. “The last four or five years, we’ve played our best hockey this time of year, and that’s a good thing. That entire effort was nothing more than to set the stage for tomorrow, because it all happens tomorrow.”
Scott Kozlak had three assists, and Jason Torf stopped 31 shots for the Falcons for his 12th win of the season.
“This was huge,” said Kozlak, one of seven seniors who will be honored tonight at Senior Night. “We get a chance to get a bye and a home-ice series, and that’s exactly what we want. We knew that, if we got a win tonight, we’d have a chance to get a bye tomorrow, so it was like a playoff game for us.”
Robert Morris cut Air Force’s lead to 3-2 with 3:43 remaining on a goal by Furman South, but Paul Weisgarber sealed the win with an empty-net goal with 1:12 remaining.
The Falcons were opportunistic in the opening period. Captain Jacques Lamoureux — the AHA’s all-time leading goal scorer — took a rebound of a Kyle De Laurell shot and deposited the puck past Colonials goalie Brooks Ostergard 5:24 into the game to start the night’s scoring. Freshman defender Adam McKenzie skated off the Air Force bench, took a pass from Kozlak with 6:15 remaining in the first period and rocketed it into the net to give the Falcons a 2-0 advantage.
“The puck was coming to my stick, we were getting the puck to the net and they were going in,” Kozlak said.
That lead lasted exactly 9 seconds in the second period, as Robert Morris’ Ron Cramer beat Torf with a wrister for an unassisted goal to cut the Falcons’ lead in half.
George Michalke made it 3-1 Falcons with 12:31 remaining in the second after recovering his own errant pass off the skate of a Colonials defender and whipping it into the net from the left wing. Air Force killed 5:41 of Robert Morris power play time in the last half of the second period to take the two-goal advantage into the second intermission.
