NEVILLE TWP., Pa — Robert Morris had their five-game conference winning streak come to an end thanks to a determined effort from the visiting Air Force Falcons on Friday night at RMU Island Sports Center as the Falcons skated to a 2-0 victory.
Air Force managed to keep a potent Colonials offensive attack that had been averaging four goals a game during recent play bottled up throughout sixty minutes while converting two Robert Morris mishaps into all the offense they needed.
“The team that worked the hardest won that game.” Colonial head coach Derek Schooley said following the loss that saw his team’s record fall to 7-5-0 on the year. “We need to work harder. From the first shift, we weren’t dialed in. We turned pucks over right away and they took it to us. Hats off to them, that was a 2-0 butt kicking. It was the most disappointing forty minutes that we played all year. They played like a team that was hungry and wanted to prove themselves and we played like a team that was very content in where we are in the standings and if you continue to be content like that you won’t be in that position very long.”
While the Falcons defense and goaltender Alex Schilling were both on point throughout the night, the Colonials and starting netminder Justin Kapelmaster were nearly just as good in keeping pucks out of the net, with two exceptions, both the result of Colonial turnovers.
Falcon forward Trevor Stone found himself with a two on one situation after Colonial defenseman Sean Giles fell to the ice in his own end and buried a shot past Kapelmaster to put his team in the lead at 9:27 of the first period. Then at 8:54 of the second frame, Max Harper put his breakaway chance in the net following a bad Colonial change to double the Falcon lead. For the night the Falcons out shot the Colonials by a 36-19 margin including a 29-11 disparity after 40 minutes of hockey.
The offensive output from the Colonials, though aided from a strong defensive performance from the Falcons was anemic. Turnovers, lack of focus and lack of effort seemed to keep them from gaining any momentum, or creating any meaningful offensive zone time throughout the contest.
“We didn’t get anything going to the net because we kept turning pucks over,” Schooley added. “It’s tough to get offensive looks when they have the puck because we gave it to them. We didn’t execute the way we wanted to. We haven’t had adversity for a while. We’ve won five league games in a row, we played well at Penn State and we will find out what we’re made of in that locker room because tonight wasn’t good enough.”
The two teams finish their weekend series on Saturday night at 7:05 p.m. at RMU Island Sports Center.
