Photo courtesy of Kylee Surike/RMU Athletics
NEVILLE TWP.,PA- There was a good bit to like about the Robert Morris Colonials effort on Friday night as they faced the Army Black Knights in a critical Atlantic Hockey Association battle at Clearview Arena, with the exception of a costly eight minute section of the second frame that saw the Black Knights light up Robert Morris for three goals which proved to be the difference in a 6-3 Army victory. Hunter McCoy led way offensively for Army with two goals on the night while in the net, JJ Cataldo stopped 32 of 35 shots en route his ninth win of the season. It was yet another game where the Colonials failed to come up with 60 complete minutes of hockey and faced a potentially a very costly result in terms of missed opportunities in the context of the season standings.
“We talked about the first three and last three minutes of a period and we gave up four and we can’t do that and have momentum,” Robert Morris head coach Derek Schooley said. “It was a terrible start to the second period and we righted the ship a little bit but when you spot a team 3-0 it’s hard to come back.”
After a fairly evenly played first 16 minutes, the Black Knights opened the scoring at 17:38 when Brent Keefer deposited his sixth goal of the season, beating starting Colonial netminder Dylan Meilun to give his team the lead heading into the dressing room, and for the Colonials, the situation slipped from bad to worse to a nearly impossible task as the second frame commenced. Goals from Adam Marshall and McCoy less than 40 seconds apart put Army firmly in the driver’s seat. Meilun exited the Colonial net as freshman Dawson Smith came on in relief. And even though Robert Morris would answer with a goal from George Krotiris at 3:21 of the second frame to help his side crawl back into the contest, the Colonials never found a way to seize momentum as they yielded yet another tally with McCoy’s second goal coming at 8:08.
“We’ve got to stop more pucks,” Schooley added. “We’ve got to defend better and close gaps quicker. It’s not about scoring right now; we need to play the game the right way. We have to put pucks below the goal line, we can’t keep turning pucks over in critical areas and until we do that, we’re going to struggle. “
Michael Craig closed the gap to two goals with his sixth goal of the season at 9:01 the second period, and for the remainder of the frame and for large parts of the third, the Colonials had the better of the territory and started stacking shots on goal at a quicker rate than their opponents as Robert Morris built a 24-18 shot advantage at the end of 40 minutes. The Colonials pulled within a goal at 13:22 as Michael Felsing netted his fourth tally of the season to make it 4-3, however, Cataldo stood tall during a power play after Felsing’s goal and Black Knight forward Barron Woodring scored on a late Army man advantage to help put the game away.
The two schools finish business for the weekend with Saturday’s game at Clearview Arena with puck drop scheduled for 5 PM.
