It took all season for the Air Force Academy Fighting Falcons to get a sweep in conference, but it finally happened. Air Force beat the Bentley College Falcons, 3-1, to sweep the best-of-three series between the two teams and earn a date at the Atlantic Hockey Association Final Five in Rochester, N.Y., next weekend.<\/p>\n
“If you’re only going to get one [sweep], this is the time to do it,” said Air Force coach Frank Serratore.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t want to leave it up going to a game three because when you get into situations like that, it doesn’t matter whether you’re home or away; anything could happen,” said Air Force forward Jeff Hajner. “You just don’t want to leave it up to something like that.”<\/p>\n
Bentley started off the game strong, getting the first few shots on net, but it was the Air Force power play that started off the scoring.<\/p>\n
AFA struck first on a five-on-three power play off a nice passing play. Greg Flynn on the point took a pass from Michael Mayra, sent it down to Matt Fairchild on the right side of the net who tossed it to Brent Olson in the slot who shot it stick-side on Bentley netminder Joe Calvi (43 saves).<\/p>\n
36 seconds later, Air Force went up 2-0 on another power-play goal. Jeff Hajner walked the puck out of the far corner and around the circle and fired a pass across the ice to Flynn, who one-timed the puck over Calvi’s left pad.<\/p>\n
“I thought that in that first period, we played a good solid game and it seemed as if we were going to be ready to go and they scored a couple power-play goals,” said Bentley coach Ryan Soderquist. “Five-on-five we were fine.”<\/p>\n
Air Force made it 3-0 off a Hajner power-play goal four minutes into the second period. Hajner took a pass from Derrick Burnett and wristed a shot from just above the left face-off dot past a screened Calvi.<\/p>\n
“[The power play’s] been on fire for us lately; five power-play goals this weekend,” said Hajner. “Power plays are going to help your game, especially in the play-offs.”<\/p>\n
“Our special teams and goaltending was better than theirs,” said Serratore. “Our penalty killing got it done, we scored some power-play goals and our goaltending was good when it had to be.”<\/p>\n
A rare penalty shot, Air Force’s first of the season, was called with 5:35 left in the second as Burnett, fresh out of the penalty box, drew a hooking call on a breakaway. However, he miffed on the shot.<\/p>\n
“I have a move I use in practice and I was going to try it then I just decided not to try anything I guess,” said Burnett. “I don’t know. I have no words for that.”<\/p>\n
The game started to get chippy in the second period, particularly in the last 5:35 of the frame; 12 of the period’s 16 penalties were called in that span, including six coincidental calls.<\/p>\n
“I think they knew that it was almost like the game was starting to get a little bit out of hand and when series get like that, some chippy stuff starts happening,” said Hajner. “I think the refs did a really good job keeping their composure and making sure we kept ours.”<\/p>\n
Both teams had near misses in the third period, Bentley with a two-on-one in front of the crease that Air Force goalie Andrew Volkening got and Air Force with a shot that was knocked out of mid-air by Bobby Preece, but it looked like it would remain 3-0.<\/p>\n
However, Bentley, who has not been shut out in 33 games, got on the board with 4:48 left in the third period. Dustin Cloutier and Dain Prewitt came down on a two-on-one, Cloutier got Mayra to commit and slid the puck over to Prewitt who slammed it home past Volkening (21 saves).<\/p>\n
“To end the season scoring the last goal meant a lot to me, to see the guys not give up,” said Soderquist. “The seniors went out with a great last period, won their last period of play and they didn’t allow what had transpired last night to happen here tonight and I think that meant a lot to the senior class.”<\/p>\n
Bentley had a chance at the end when Josh Schaffer went off on a checking from behind penalty, but Air Force stood strong.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t really give them a sniff,” said Serratore. “We got it deep, we created turnovers in the neutral zone and I thought we did a very good job on that penalty kill.<\/p>\n
“Our best player was Volkening, and that’s the guy you want being your best player going into that tournament.”<\/p>\n
Air Force moves on in the playoffs, next playing the Rochester Institute of Technology Saturday, March 15, at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester at 7:35 p.m. Eastern.<\/p>\n
“The hottest team in the country is Army by a country mile, but we’re bringing a pretty good team to Rochester as well,” said Serratore. “We’re playing our best hockey right now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It took all season for the Air Force Academy Fighting Falcons to get a sweep in conference, but it finally happened. Air Force beat the Bentley College Falcons, 3-1, to sweep the best-of-three series between the two teams and earn a date at the Atlantic Hockey Association Final Five in Rochester, N.Y., next weekend. “If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"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:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8851"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}