Robert Morris stormed into the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Ala., and gave the homestanding Alabama-Huntsville Chargers all they wanted and more, coming away with a 7-1 victory Monday night in front of 1714 fans.
Nathan Longpre led off scoring for the Colonials, as he and Sean Berkstresser worked a loose puck in front of starting netminder Cam Talbot and lit the lamp just 1:18 into the game. Longpre and Berkstresser swapped roles for the second goal, with Berkstresser firing home a medium-range shot that Talbot never seemed to see with just 3:00 gone in the game.
“They got a couple quick ones,” Chargers’ coach Danton Cole remarked, “And as happens sometimes, you get a little bit rattled and you get away from what you’re doing.”
Cole attempted to stanch the bleeding by swapping goaltenders, putting in sophomore Blake MacNicol, but he proved no more up to the task than his teammate.
“Defensively, we weren’t very good, and our goaltending wasn’t very good,” stated Cole. Jason Towsley solved that defense with a power-play goal a minute into the Colonials’ first power play of the night, scoring unassisted at 6:10.
The Chargers’ lone goal of the night came on a power play when Andrew Coburn found Matt Sweazey in front of the goal mouth to push the puck past Colonials’ netminder Christian Boucher to narrow the margin to 3-1. The Colonials answered with a power-play goal off the stick of David Boguslawski with 1:17 left in the first to skate into the first intermission up 4-1.
The Colonials scored twice more in the second, with Andrew Bonello’s goal at 4:14 chasing MacNicol and Talbot returning to the ice.
Boguslawski earned first star honors on the night with his second goal less than two minutes later to carry the margin to 6-1.
Chris Margott scored the Colonials’ final goal in the third period. The remainder of the period saw each team rack up a number of roughing and high-sticking minors as the home team appeared to take out their frustrations.
“I’ve never been a fan of [chippiness] in 7-1 games,” said Cole. “I understand it in a 1-1 game, but I don’t understand it when you’re up or down by that much.”
The two teams match up for one final game in 2007 on Tuesday night at 7:05 p.m. at the Von Braun Center before heading off to the Christmas break.
