{"id":171833815,"date":"2018-01-27T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-27T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/01\/27\/canisius-vs-bentley-2\/"},"modified":"2018-01-27T23:02:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-28T05:02:06","slug":"canisius-vs-bentley-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/01\/27\/canisius-vs-bentley-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlantic Hockey: Bentley holds off Canisius in 3-2 win"},"content":{"rendered":"

WATERTOWN, Mass. –<\/strong> There\u2019s an old adage in sports. A team is never as good as when it wins, but it\u2019s also never as bad as when it loses. <\/span><\/p>\n

The month of January was not kind to the Bentley Falcons. Battling through injuries, a depleted roster did what it could in earning three ties against Northeastern, Army West Point and Robert Morris. But the Falcons still entered the month\u2019s last day, facing first place Canisius without a win in the calendar month and coming off of a 3-2 loss on Friday night. They had been playing well, but they just hadn\u2019t put up a \u201cW\u201d as tangible proof of that play.<\/span><\/p>\n

That changed on Saturday night. Three different goal scorers lit the lamp as Bentley roared to a 3-0, second period lead against the Golden Griffins, ultimately holding on for a 3-2 victory at John A. Ryan Arena on Saturday evening.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think (the win) does a lot for the locker room,\u201d Bentley head coach Ryan Soderquist said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been playing good hockey for the last couple of weeks with nothing to show. Guys have stayed extremely committed and came in extremely focused (on Saturday). They stuck together, put some trust in each other and got the win.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After falling behind in the game\u2019s first 90 seconds on Friday, Bentley struck first against the Griffs on Saturday. Senior forward Matt Sieckhaus unleashed a slap shot past Canisius goalie Daniel Urbani, tucking it under the crossbar at the 7:11 mark to give Bentley a 1-0 lead. The goal was Sieckhaus\u2019 second of the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

It served as a rallying cry for the Falcons. They scored 28 seconds into the second period when freshman Luke Santerno shuffled a greasy goal past Urbani. Bentley made it 3-0 four minutes later when senior captain Kyle Schmidt slipped a snapshot over the crease line.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur energy level and mental toughness were great right from the start,\u201d Soderquist said. \u201c(On Friday night), we didn\u2019t play the first ten minutes of the game very well, and tonight we played all 60 minutes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Canisius didn\u2019t take the deficit lying down. Earlier this season, the Griffs trailed Bentley 2-0 but rallied to score five unanswered in a 5-2 victory in Buffalo. Facing a three-goal deficit, they went to work, chipping away through the latter half of the final frame, starting with junior defenseman Alex Jaeckle\u2019s shot from the point deflected off senior captain Ryan Schmelzer for a power play goal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of belief in our team,\u201d Large said. \u201cIf you watch us play, there\u2019s guys like (Matt) Hoover, (Nick Hutchison), and Ryan Schmelzer – they really drive our team. It\u2019s easy to play when you\u2019re down 3-0 because there\u2019s really no choice. You know the opponent might be a little more relaxed, and you have no choice. You know you have to push. I wish the deficit wasn\u2019t 3-0, but I think in those games, we\u2019re going to get the ultimate effort from our guys. It\u2019s actually pretty easy to do when you\u2019re down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Though the score remained 3-1 through the next several minutes, Canisius head coach Trevor Large opted to pull Urbani with three minutes remaining. The extra skater helped apply the necessary pressure for Schmelzer to redirect Felix Chamberland\u2019s pass into the back of the net, activating the red light and adding intrigue to the game\u2019s final minute. <\/span><\/p>\n

It would be of little consolation, however, as Bentley finished ahead on the scoresheet.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe won more faceoffs, more wall battles, won on the penalty kill and won on shot blocking,\u201d Soderquist said. \u201cThose are things that we can control every night, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do to get better. That\u2019s what we try to do every night.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bentley win earned a weekend split for the Falcons, their first league win since beating Robert Morris back in late November. It also denied Canisius for the third straight week of a sweep, a feat the Griffs haven\u2019t accomplished since beating Niagara on back-to-back nights in early December. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought (this weekend) had two really similar games,\u201d Large said. \u201cIt was tough sledding out there. Bentley\u2019s compete level was high (on Friday) and was equally high (in the second game). We got outworked for the first two periods (in Saturday\u2019s game), but it wasn\u2019t that we weren\u2019t competing. They got that first goal, and that made a difference in how the two teams were feeling. We had a good push in the third period, and maybe with a little more time, we could\u2019ve tied it up. But the harder working team came out on top.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s result earned Bentley two much-needed points in the Atlantic Hockey playoff race, vaulting the Falcons over Sacred Heart and into 10th place. It also kept pace with both RIT and Air Force – coincidentally also their opponents over the next two weekends. Though the Falcons remain four and three points back of both teams, respectively, they still control their own destiny for home ice in the first round of the postseason.<\/span><\/p>\n

Canisius, meanwhile, remained in first place, although the door momentarily opened for Holy Cross to seize the position. A Crusader loss to RIT kept the two teams tied atop the Atlantic Hockey table, and they remain two points clear of Mercyhurst after the Laker victory at Army West Point. Both teams remain clear of Niagara and Robert Morris, who are tied, four points behind, for fourth and fifth place.<\/span><\/p>\n

GAME NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was Canisius\u2019 final game at the JAR in a series dating back to 1980-1981. Though the Griffs lead the overall series, 32-24-6, the teams finish the JAR era with an even 15-15-1…The win was Bentley\u2019s first against Canisius since Game One of the 2014 AHC Quarterfinals. The Falcons tied the Griffs last year and in 2014-2015 but hadn\u2019t beaten them in the regular season since a 4-1 win in Buffalo…It was Bentley\u2019s first home regular season win against Canisius since a sweep in January, 2013…Kyle Schmidt\u2019s 50th career goal gave him 109 career points, moving him within a point of the Top 20 scorers in Bentley program history. He is already in the Top 10 in the Falcons\u2019 Division I history.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WATERTOWN, Mass. – There\u2019s an old adage in sports. A team is never as good as when it wins, but it\u2019s also never as bad as when it loses. The month of January was not kind to the Bentley Falcons. Battling through injuries, a depleted roster did what it could in earning three ties against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"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":[820],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171833815"}],"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\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171833815"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171833815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171833941,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171833815\/revisions\/171833941"}],"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=171833815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171833815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171833815"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=171833815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}