Air Force has goaltending battle between Caple, Torf

Air Force coach Frank Serratore never has been bashful about using multiple goaltenders. In the 2006-07 season, he played four, with none getting fewer than eight games. Pressed at the end of the year on his reasoning, he had a simple explanation, and he wasn’t joking.

“Because we didn’t have five,” Serratore said. “None of them could stop anything.”

So a platoon between the fast-emerging Stephen Caple and the now-healthy Jason Torf is hardly a stretch. In fact, it’s a productive competition for the Falcons, who travel to Holy Cross this weekend hoping to remain in first place in the Atlantic Hockey Association.

A senior, Caple has started the past 15 games, forced into action after Torf, a sophomore, suffered a strained groin at a season-opening tournament in Grand Forks, N.D. He’s 10-3-2 with a 2.20 goals-against average and a .911 save percentage. He lacks a shutout on his ledger, but he has shown he can win in overtime, he has shown he can win close games and he has shown he can win on the road, beating No. 6 Colorado College last weekend.

Then again, Torf proved himself last season, marking a 16-9-3 record with a 2.87 GAA and a .909 save percentage. He stopped 40 shots in a 1-0 win over the Rochester Institute of Technology in the AHA Tournament championship game, and he almost propelled Air Force to a victory in the NCAA Tournament, where it fell to Yale 2-1 in overtime.

Chances are Caple will start Friday, having led Air Force (10-5-2, 8-2-1 AHA) to wins in five of its past six games. It wouldn’t be out of the question, however, for Torf to get the nod Saturday. Torf is 100 percent recovered, and he got his feet wet in a 7-1 loss against No. 11 Denver that followed the win over CC, allowing two goals after Caple was pulled.

“Either both of them establish themselves and win,” Serratore said, “and we’ve got two guys we can use, and we can alternate them. Or one guy emerges. The thing you don’t want is for both of them to crap the bed and end up with nobody. But I got no problems. If I was a football coach, and I had two great quarterbacks, I would play them both.”

Caple and Torf are each “playing out of merit,” said Serratore, who sees Torf as “more of a modern-day, athletic, butterfly-type goalie” and Caple as “more of a conventional-type goalie. I don’t want to say he’s a standup. He has to stand up more than others.” Serratore noted, “Stephen didn’t have to win games for us in the first half, but he did succeed in not losing them. We weren’t convinced he could win a game for us, and he answered that.”

Caple vows to do “whatever is best for the team,” he said. “If (Torf) gets back and he’s doing awesome and tearing it up, I’ll just have to push him and make it even harder for him to start. I’ll push him, and he’ll push me. At the end of the day, we just want to help the team and get the best guy out there.” About the battle with Torf, he said, “If you don’t use that to push yourself and get better, then you don’t know how to play at this level.”

“Obviously, everyone would like to play all the games,” Torf added. “That’s just not the case sometimes. … As long as we keep building off each other, that platoon thing won’t really hurt us. I think it will make us stronger, as long as we keep feeding off each other.”

Contact Brian Gomez: 719-636-0256 or brian.gomez@gazette.com. Facebook: Brian Gomez. Twitter: @gazettehockey. Google+: Brian Gomez.