The college hockey season is entering its final month, and for Air Force and the rest of the contenders in Atlantic Hockey, it's playoff time already. The Falcons shut out RIT 3-0 on Friday night on national television, and as a result moved into a three-way tie for the conference lead with RIT and Niagara, who defeated Mercyhurst on the road 6-1. The Falcons play Niagara next week. The top five teams are now separated by just two points in the league standings.
Air Force controlled the ice for most of the first period on Friday, but could not dent the net, even though they outshot RIT 17-6. Few of those shots were high quality though, and Tiger goalie Shane Madolora was able to make most of the stops easily. Madolora and the Tigers had given up only four goals in their past six games, a stretch in which they went 5-0-1. Their were three consecutive shutouts, and Madolora had a period of 211 minutes without allowing a goal.
But with the Falcons short-handed, the Tigers made a costly turnover early in the second period, and Casey Kleisinger made them pay, beating Madolora stick side at the 1:50 mark for a 1-0 Air Force lead. "That's huge for us," Kleisinger commented. "When we get off to a good start we can make the other team play our game."
RIT started to find their rhythm midway through the period, and into the third, but they could not beat Falcon goalie Jason Torf. In the third, the Falcons got the all important second goal when Chad Demers redirected a shot by Scott Mathis. A late goal by John Kruse with two minutes left rounded out the scoring.
"It's huge for us. We had a really tough patch the beginning of January," Kleisinger explained.
"Very good," coach Frank Serratore said about the entire effort. "We're rivals. Since we've come into the league there have been ten champs (regular season and conference tournament), and we've won nine of them."
The win in goal for Torf was just his second of the year, due to missing a long period with a groin injury. "This year's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. It was huge for me," Torf confided.
The Falcons are now 13-7-6 overall, while RIT slipped to 15-9-3. The teams will conclude their series Saturday night at Cadet Ice Arena, with faceoff set for 7:00 pm.
Blue Lines
Colorado College took a step toward reclaiming the Gold Pan trophy with a 2-0 shutout victory at Denver on Friday night. A win or tie at home Saturday will clinch the season series, and return the Pan to Colorado Springs. Start time at World Arena is also 7:00 pm.
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