ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Army captain Joe Kozlak notched a goal and two assists as he led his team to a win over the RIT Tigers on Friday night.
“‘Kozy’s’ been playing real well lately,” said Army coach Brian Riley, who was quick to point out that Kozlak brings more to his team than just points. “[He’s] been getting points for us, but doing a lot of the other things too that you don’t notice, doing a good job winning puck races, winning one-on-one battles. He’s one of our leaders, and he showed why tonight.”
The Black Knights opened the scoring just 2:44 into the first period when Kozlak set up defenseman Maurice Alvarez, whose one-timer found its way through traffic and past Tigers senior netminder Jordan Ruby.
Army broke the game open halfway through the second period with a quick pair of goals. At 8:20, freshman forward Conor Andrle showed off some slick hands as he walked in from the side of the net and pulled Ruby away from the post with a quick deke, allowing him to slide the puck in on the short side to make it 2-0.
Less than two minutes later, freshman defenseman Blake Box scored on a slap shot from the top of the circle. Kozlak and sophomore center Clint Carlisle both picked up their second assists of the game on the play. Box’s goal prompted a goaltending change for RIT, as they substituted sophmore goalie Mike Rotolo in to relieve Ruby.
“I thought that might wake up the guys a bit,” said RIT coach Wayne Wilson regarding pulling Ruby. “I guess they didn’t really seem to care too much about that either. I can’t pull the 18 skaters off the ice; otherwise, I would have.”
[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000ErhZgrQch60″ g_name=”20150130-Army-RIT-Phillips” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f22Uholt03zXeItWAb33lUGrIl6khD9g3Pz8yPvRuuaNxFnxUDQ–” ]The goaltending change appeared to stir the Tigers, who scored at 15:12 of the second when sophmore defenseman Alex Perron-Fontaine fired a slap shot from the point through several bodies in front of the net, beating Army goaltender Cole Bruns.
Perron-Fontaine scored again late in the third period to pull his team within one goal, but that would be all the Tigers could get past Bruns, who turned in a stellar third period performance to preserve the victory for Army.
“He was our best player tonight,” said Riley of Bruns. “I think that gave our guys confidence; they knew how well he was playing.”
Riley also noted the importance of Bruns’ play to his team’s penalty kill, which killed off all five penalties.
“Your goalie has to be your best penalty killer, and he certainly was for us tonight.”
Kozlak iced the game for the Black Knights with an empty-netter at 19:44 following a late push from RIT.
“I’m really proud of our guys for the effort,” said Riley. “We had to weather a storm, which we always have to do against these guys in here, and I thought our guys showed good composure.”
According to Wilson, we should expect to see a different line-up for the Tigers when these teams face off again on Saturday night.
“You can’t come out and perform like that and think nothing’s gonna happen from it, so they don’t get to play at home.”
