Appropriately enough, a blast that appeared faster than a bullet from
\nArmy’s Bryce Hollweg with 30.9 seconds left in regulation gave the Black
\nKnights a 2-2 overtime tie at RIT. A goaltending battle came down to a
\nshot that an NHL goalie would have had trouble stopping.<\/p>\n
Louis Menard of RIT and Army’s Josh Kassel battled all game long to keep
\ntheir teams in the game. Menard wound up with 36 saves while Kassel
\nstopped 34 shots.<\/p>\n
“I thought both goalies came up big,” Army coach Brian Riley said.
\n“Each team had some quality scoring chances. Their guy stopped a couple
\nof breakaways. It was definitely a battle of two top goalies.”<\/p>\n
“Both goaltenders played great,” RIT coach Wayne Wilson said. “But
\nmaybe Louis Menard played a little more spectacular.”<\/p>\n
The first period did not see too much offensive firepower. Army did not
\nget their first shot of the game until approximately 6-1\/2 minutes, as
\nRIT controlled the early going. After some penalties by the Tigers,
\nArmy got their offense going and wound up having an 11-7 shots advantage
\nafter the first.<\/p>\n
“We played a little sporadic,” Wilson said. “It seemed like we
\nstruggled to string two or three shifts together during the first half
\nof the game.”<\/p>\n
RIT scored the first goal of the game thanks to a terrible mistake by
\nArmy who was on the power play. With the puck deep in Army’s zone in
\nwhat should have been a routine clear, turned into a giveaway. Tyler
\nMazzei grabbed the puck in the corner and centered it to Ricky Walton.
\nWalton easily put the puck into the open net since Kassel was originally
\nbehind the net to play the puck and despite a diving attempt, could not
\nreach it in time.<\/p>\n
The 1-0 lead held for the period thanks to a pair of outstanding efforts
\nby Menard. The first came when Army tried to get their own shorthanded
\ntally with a breakaway by Chase Podsiad.<\/p>\n
Podsiad did everything right. He skated wide, made the goalie react
\nfirst, cut across the net … but just as he was about to deposit the
\npuck into the open net, Menard somehow recovered to poke check the puck
\naway at the last possible millisecond. Podsiad didn’t give up, picking
\nup the loose puck and quickly backhanding a shot. Menard had to just as
\nquickly recover to make another just-in-time save.<\/p>\n
Later in the period with Army on the power play, Robb Ross received the
\npuck unguarded next to the goalpost. He shot towards the near side in
\nwhat should have been an easy goal. However, once again Menard kicked
\nhis leg out and just barely knocked it away in time with his skate.<\/p>\n
RIT nearly had their second shorthanded goal when Dan Ringwald was
\nallowed to skate in unimpeded. This required Kassel to come up with a
\ndifficult save.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, Army tied the game on the same power play. Luke
\nFlicek, skating down the middle, let off an off speed wrist shot, which
\nfooled Menard. He did stop it, but let up a fat rebound which was
\neasily shot in by Owen Meyer from the faceoff circle.<\/p>\n
Once again Menard was asked to stop a shorthanded breakaway a minute
\nlater. This time he stayed with the skater, Meyer, and stopped the shot
\non his stick side.<\/p>\n
At this point, the game opened up, requiring both goaltenders to be
\nsharp, especially Kassel who was called upon to make some great saves.<\/p>\n
RIT retook the lead after Kassel made the initial save on a shot by
\nRingwald, but was unable to get to the rebound when his own defender got
\nin the way. Lambert swatted at the loose puck knocking it past Kassel.<\/p>\n
Menard kept the Tigers lead midway through the third period when he made
\na glove save while sprawled on the ice. Seconds later on the other end,
\nCrowell, streaking down the middle, received a perfect pass from
\nLambert, but shot it wide.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later Kassel was forced to make two difficult saves when
\nKharin took advantage of a giveaway and then got his own rebound.<\/p>\n
A late penalty by RIT once again forced Menard to come up with a glove
\nsave that seemingly had his arm stretched out further than his wing span.<\/p>\n
“We kept losing momentum every time we took a penalty,” Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Army, which came in with the third best power play in the league, only
\nwent one for eight, but they did keep RIT from scoring a power-play goal
\nin five attempts.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, when you have that many power plays you would like to be able
\nto cash in a little more,” Riley said. “We knew coming in from a
\npenalty killing standpoint this was going to be a big challenge. Every
\ntime you keep a team like RIT’s power play off the board, you’re doing
\nsomething right.”<\/p>\n
With their goalie pulled for an extra attacker, Flicek, from behind the
\nnet, fed Hollweg in the slot. Hollweg one-timed a blast that Menard had
\nno prayer of stopping.<\/p>\n
“Anytime you are in a situation where you have to pull the goalie, you
\nare just trying to get some pucks to the net,” Riley said. “That’s how
\nwe found the puck in the high slot. Obviously, it’s a big point to come
\naway from here after your down.”<\/p>\n
RIT thought they had the winning goal in overtime, the players raised
\ntheir sticks and the red light went on, but the ref waived it off as the
\npuck bounced off the inside of the post and away from the net.<\/p>\n
“The disappointment is when you let up a goal so late in the game,”
\nWilson said. “Those are opportunities that slip by us. It was a good
\neffort, but we need a great effort to beat Army.”<\/p>\n
The two teams meet again in Rochester Saturday night.<\/p>\n
“It should be another great game,” Riley said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Appropriately enough, a blast that appeared faster than a bullet from Army’s Bryce Hollweg with 30.9 seconds left in regulation gave the Black Knights a 2-2 overtime tie at RIT. A goaltending battle came down to a shot that an NHL goalie would have had trouble stopping. Louis Menard of RIT and Army’s Josh Kassel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8449"}],"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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8449\/revisions"}],"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=8449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8449"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}