Air Force opened up a 2-0 lead in the first period and held on for a 4-1 win over Division III Augsburg College on Friday evening.
The Falcons (5-3-1) took control of the game with two first period goals. Brian Gornick and Jace Anders broke away from the pack at the 11:36 mark and Gornick fired a wrister that was saves, but Anders punched in the rebound.
Five minutes later Billy O’Reilly scored his first of the season when he received a pass from behind the net from Scott Zwiers.
Augsburg got on the board on the power play when Jaro Cesky blew by the Falcon defense at the blueline and sent a backhander past Marc Kielkucki.
Spanky Leonard made it 3-1 in favor of Air Force when Leonard cleaned up a rebound of a Scott Bradley shot.
The Falcons made it 4-1 as Zwiers took a Gornick faceoff win and skated into the slot and snapped one past Augsburg goaltender Ryan McIntosh.
“They are a good Division III team with a Division I goaltender,” said Falcon head coach Frank Serratore. “The game ended up the way it should have, but there were times when we knew we needed the next goal. We needed to win this game to feel good about ourselves. We have a big weekend ahead of us, playing at Wayne State next weekend and need to game some confidence.”
The Falcons will try to gain more confidence in the second game of this series on Saturday evening.
