{"id":171832986,"date":"2018-01-12T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/01\/12\/air-force-vs-rit\/"},"modified":"2018-01-12T22:53:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-13T04:53:57","slug":"air-force-vs-rit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/01\/12\/air-force-vs-rit\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopolous’ strong net play leads Air Force over RIT, 2-1"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROCHESTER, N.Y. —<\/strong> Air Force came into this weekend’s series at Rochester Institute of Technology already banged up, with several players out of the lineup, including senior all-star defenseman Phil Boje.<\/p>\n

The bad news is that two more seniors left tonight’s game with injuries. The good news is that the Falcons were able to overcome those setbacks, and thanks to a pair of timely saves by goaltender Billy Christopolous, come away with a 2-1 win over the host Tigers.<\/p>\n

Air Force was limited to 13 shots on goal for the game, but scored on two of its first three attempts, opening a 2-0 first-period lead. Erik Baskin and Trevor Stone scored for the Falcons, and Christopolous stopped 25 of the 26 shots he faced, including a pair of breakaway chances for RIT.<\/p>\n

“The key to it all, the foundation to it all, was Billy Christopolous,” said Air Force coach Frank Serratore. “(Stopping) the two breakaways. To me, that was the difference.”<\/p>\n

The first save came early in the first period when RIT’s Mark Logan was able to get in all alone on Christopolous, who got a piece of the shot. The puck trickled behind the Air Force goalie, but freshman defenseman Jake Levin swatted the puck out of danger before it crossed the goal line.<\/p>\n

“(Logan) made a pretty good move and kind of slipped it though my five-hole,” said Christopolous. “But (Levin) came back and saved me there.”<\/p>\n

Minutes later, Baskin took a drop pass from linemate Ben Kucera and beat RIT goaltender Logan Drackett stick side to make it 1-0 Falcons. It was Baskin’s team-leading 10th goal of the season.<\/p>\n

Air Force struck again about six minutes later when Stone put a shot in nearly the same place as Baskin’s goal, stick side and just inside the far post, for his third goal of the season.<\/p>\n

RIT outshot Air Force 5-3 in the tightly played first period.<\/p>\n

“We limited them to three shots (in the first) but we give up two goals, ” said RIT coach Wayne Wilson. “Obviously, we’d like to have that back. But the rest of the game was a good defensive battle.<\/p>\n

“I was disappointed in the loss, but not in the effort. It was the kind of game we were expecting.”<\/p>\n

“Obviously, it was good to have the lead,” said Serratore. “Because we knew (RIT) wouldn’t quit.”<\/p>\n

Christopolous’ other huge save was early in the second period, again stopping a breakaway. This time it was a backhand attempt by RIT’s Shawn Cameron.<\/p>\n

“I just got enough of it with my shoulder,” said Christopolous. “I was pretty excited about that.”<\/p>\n

RIT drew within one with 7:24 remaining in the third period. Dan Willett won a battle along the half wall and got the puck to Cameron, who connected with Myles Powell with a goal-mouth pass for Powell’s eighth goal of the season.<\/p>\n

The Tigers put pressure on Christopolous in the final minutes, pulling Drackett for an extra skater with 1:54 left, but the Falcons were able to pack it in and Christopolous made a pair of saves in the closing seconds to preserve the victory.<\/p>\n

RIT outshot Air Force, 26-13, including 13-5 in the final period.<\/p>\n

“I thought we carried play in the third,” said Wilson. “Once you get down 2-0 to a team like Air Force, they’re going to try to shut it down, and they did a really good job of that tonight.”<\/p>\n

Air Force lost senior forwards Tyler Ledford and Jordan Himley to injuries during the game. They would have logged significant ice time in the final minutes.<\/p>\n

“Those are two of our top guys,” said Christopolous. “But other guys have stepped up and we got it done.”<\/p>\n

“We had no choice,” said Serratore. “The guys answered the bell. I like the way we battled. Hopefully, we can continue to overcome these injuries. I hope there’s no banana peels in the locker room, because it’s been that kind of a season so far.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Air Force came into this weekend’s series at Rochester Institute of Technology already banged up, with several players out of the lineup, including senior all-star defenseman Phil Boje. The bad news is that two more seniors left tonight’s game with injuries. The good news is that the Falcons were able to overcome […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[803],"coauthors":[845],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171832986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171832986"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171832986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171833233,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171832986\/revisions\/171833233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171832986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171832986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171832986"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=171832986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}