Photo courtesy of Kylee Surike/RMU Athletics
NEVILLE TWP.,PA- The Robert Morris Colonials were able to hold off a determined Lindenwood University Lions side in a tight non conference battle at Clearview Arena on Friday night as they ran their record to 3-1-1 on the season with a 3-0 win in the first of the two game weekend series. The Colonials got goals from three different scorers and stopped all five Lion power plays including three in the final frame en route to the win, and a 37 save shutout from freshman goaltender Croix Kochendorfer, the first of his collegiate career.
“Hats off to them,” Robert Morris head coach Derek Schooley said referring to his opponent. “They played hard and we need to be better. We were on our heels in the first period, we were turning pucks over and we didn’t play with a lot of energy but credit goes to them, they’ve got a good hockey team, that’s the reason why they beat Wisconsin. We got better as the game went on but we have yet to play a complete 60 minutes and we need to do that moving on.”
Scoring at a Premium
From the drop of the puck, the Lions managed to take the early momentum as they tilted the ice for extended periods during the first twenty minutes, garnering 11 shots with four of them coming off the stick of sophomore forward Jake Southgate. However, some timely saves from Kochendorfer early, kept Lindenwood off the score sheet . The Lions seemed content to develop opportunities off their cycling attack while Robert Morris looked for ways to spring some odd man rushes as they put up seven shots as Lindenwood netminder Owen Bartoszkiewicz kept his side of the scoreboard clean through the first 35 minutes.
Colonials Find Paydirt
The scoreless deadlock was broken at 16:13 of the second frame as freshman forward Trent Wilson collected the in front of the net, gathered it onto his stick and put it past Bartoszkiewicz to open the scoring with assists coming off the sticks of defenseman Dominic Elliot and forward McKay Hayes. Hayes then went to work on putting Robert Morris in a firmer position when he turned a two on one with Cody Monds into a mini breakaway while sliding the puck through the Lion’s goaltender to give the Colonials a 2-0 lead. The lead was a tenuous one at that as the Lions found themselves the recipient of three straight power plays. However, the Robert Morris penalty kill was more than up to the task as they killed all three without allowing a shot on net. Freshman forward Patrick Johnson scored his first career goal with Bartoszkiewicz on the bench in the final minute and Kochendorfer turned aside every puck he faced as the Colonials took the opening night contest of the weekend.
“Our penalty killing was outstanding,” Schooley added. “And Criox was good in the net. It was a combination of both of them, if you have good goaltending you typically have good penalty killing. But our guys did a good job structurally. At the end of the day we did things well enough to find a way to win.”
Robert Morris and Lindenwood finish their two game series tomorrow at Clearview Arena with the puck drop scheduled for 7 p.m.
