The Robert Morris Colonials put on a power play clinic tonight, going 6-for-10 with the man advantage, and defeated the visiting Ryerson Rams in convincing fashion 9-0. The Rams, who were considerably fatigued from having played a surprisingly close contest at Miami on Saturday night, kept the play chippy for most of the contest, and kept their netminders, Pierre Beaulieu and Louie George, busy by taking 13 penalties for 45 minutes, including a game misconduct, and allowing 47 shots on net.
Robert Morris senior forward Jason Towsley netted a hat trick to lead the Colonials.
Towsley opened the scoring at 7:43 of the first period with the first power-play goal of the night on a deflection of a Nathan Longpre pass. Freshman newcomer Cody Cichton added to the lead at 13:57 of the first from near the right post.
On a night when Towsley was the clear number one star, it was two newcomers that made a considerable amount of plays in the victory. Freshman forward Trevor Lewis notched two goals and an assist. One of the scores came on a nifty individual effort when Lewis skated hard down the right wing boards, cut in on George and beat him cleanly at the 18:08 mark of the second period.
Wayne State transfer sophomore forward Chris Kushneriuk notched two goals in the win as well, getting a power-play goal in the second and another in the third.
In the third, Towsley scored his second goal of the night, a semi-breakaway effort that saw him unleash a wicked wrister from the right face off circle that whistled past George at 6:29. Sophomore Scott Kobialko added a pretty deflection from Wayne State transfer sophomore defenseman Brock Meadows to close out the scoring.
Defensively the Colonials were strong, allowing only 12 shots. Junior Wes Russel and sophomore Jim Patterson combined on the shutout effort.
After the game, coach Derek Schooley was generally pleased at the outcome and believed that his squad had achieved what they had set out to do in their only tune-up before the regular season.
“It was a good opportunity to play another opponent and go out and work on some things that we’ve been kind of tuning up for. We’ve got to play a lot of people and see a lot of things and I’m very pleased with how things went. You’re seeing a little different Colonials team. We want to play up-tempo and we’re smaller but we’re a little more mobile than we’ve been in the past.”
The Colonials open their regular season on Saturday when they travel to take on Hockey East foe Merrimack.
