Photo courtesy of Kylee Surike/RMU Athletics
NEVILLE TWP.,PA- Once again the puck went everywhere but in the net for the Robert Morris Colonials as they fell in overtime by a score of 2-1 to the visiting Niagara Purple Eagles on Saturday night at Clearview Arena, avenging an overtime loss to the Colonials just 24 hours prior at Dwyer Arena. Niagara forward Shane Ott’s eighth goal of the season from close range at 1:28 of the overtime period on a held over power play sealed the outcome for Niagara who moved to 16-13-3 on the year while Robert Morris dropped to 10-18-4 on the season.
“It was a flip of last night,” Robert Morris head coach Derek Schooley said. “I thought we played really good. I thought we did a lot of good things, we didn’t give up much in the third but the story of the game for us was penalties at key times. You can’t take those kinds of penalties in key momentum switches of the game and that’s what we did.”
The Colonials were the better team early on as they carried the momentum, zone time and shots on goal, holding a 13-4 advantage on the counter following an opening 20 minutes that saw starting Purple Eagle net minder Pierce Charleson turning aside everything that came his way, keeping the Colonials off the board in the early going. The Colonials kept some of that momentum going to start the second frame and struck first on the scoreboard as forward Cameron Garvey deflected a shot from the point via the stick of Dominic Elliot to put Robert Morris in the lead at the 1:07 mark. However, the Purple Eagles found their game in a hurry following the opening tally, peppering Robert Morris goaltender Croix Kochendorfer with 18 shots for the period.
“He was outstanding all weekend,” Schooley said regarding Kochendorfer’s performance. “We have to get more than one goal for him. They (Niagara) had 14 shots on the power play and that cost us a lot of momentum, and they weren’t good penalties.”
Niagara found the break they needed to beat Kochendorfer at 11:32 of the second period when Braden Rourke was sent off for a five minute major and game misconduct for contact to the head. Forward Tyler Wallace then took advantage of the circumstances, putting a puck on a broken play in front of the Colonial net over the line to knot the game at one goal each. The Purple Eagles skated into the dressing room riding an 18 shot second frame, but the Colonials developed momentum of their own going on countless cycles deep in the Niagara end, missing the net by mere inches on several tips in front of Charleson, while accumulating seven near point blank shots that never made the red light flicker. Meanwhile, a puck got loose and free in neutral ice which Ott was able to corral while moving in on Kochendorfer as defensemen Trevor Ledonne made a last ditch effort take the puck away, he was whistled for tripping with 9.1 seconds remaining in regulation.
“That was a playoff series,” Schooley remarked, referring to the close, competitive battles during the weekend series with the Purple Eagles. “Both games were overtime wins and we weren’t very disciplined in either one. At the end of the day we have to be more disciplined and we have to keep our heads. We took a lot of good steps this weekend though, we got good goaltending and we did things well, we just didn’t score as much as we needed to.”
The Colonials wrap up their regular season next weekend against the visiting Air Force Academy Falcons with a weekend series starting on Friday, February 21 at Clearview Arena.
