PITTSBURGH — It doesn’t matter when your team comes into form before the postseason as long as it does.
That was the message Robert Morris head coach Derek Schooley was giving as his team went on a 4-5-1 slide in the second half that saw plenty of high-quality play, but equal parts inconsistency and inability to capitalize on opportunities.
With one final regular-season opportunity to get it right and put together 120 minutes of quality hockey, the Colonials did just that, thoroughly dominating a bad Niagara team with 6-2 and 5-1 victories that weren’t as close as the final score.
“We had a little down January, but we picked up here the last few weeks,” Schooley said Sunday at Heinz Field after the regular season finale. “We’ve got good goaltending, we’ve got good defense, we’ve got guys who can score.”
After the Saturday victory at Niagara, the Colonials were locked into the No. 4 seed with little to play for but pride on Sunday, but the desire to post a full weekend of solid hockey was more than enough to keep them motivated.
“We went out there [Saturday] and got the bye, but we still wanted to get it done,” Mann said. “We wanted to make sure we were playing some good hockey and some winning hockey going into the playoffs.”
Even freshman forward Jacob Coleman, who scored his first NCAA goal as part of a career-best three-point night, was more concerned about the team’s play than his own afterward.
“It was definitely nice to get the goal, but I think the two points were more important to keep the momentum going into the playoffs two weeks from now,” Coleman said.
While Coleman brushed off the importance of getting his first career goal out of the way before the end of the regular season, it’s been a theme lately that some of Robert Morris’ younger players have stepped up towards the end of the season.
Center Daniel Mantenuto has four points in his last four games including his second career goal. Winger Luke Lynch has three goals and two assists that span. On the blue, Sean Giles has a pair of assists and has solidified into a reliable defensive option and Alex Robert is challenging for more playing time, as well.
In net, another freshman, Francis Marotte, stopped 33 of 34 on Sunday. Marotte’s play hasn’t been terribly consistent lately, but his strong showing on the last game of the regular season will certainly give Schooley something to think about when it comes to choosing a goaltender for the postseason.
“It’s a great problem to have,” Schooley said. “Goaltending is not an issue for us. Goaltending will be a strength of our hockey team no matter which one we decide to go with in the playoffs, whether it’s one or whether it’s two, we have tremendous confidence.”
The progress of those freshman into serious contributors is big for the Colonials playoff chances. They’ve been led offensively all season by Brady Ferguson, Daniel Leavens and Alex Tonge. But as the season tightens, opposing teams found ways to shut down the top Robert Morris scoring line. That prompted an offensive rut that the team seems to be finding its way out of, thanks mostly to the contributions of the young Colonials.
If that’s a trend that continues into the postseason, it bodes well for their playoff hopes.
