Brent Olson scored two goals to lead the Air Force Falcons to a 3-1 victory over host RIT in the final regular season game for both teams. With the win, Air Forced earned a split of the weekend series, and a share of the Atlantic Hockey regular season championship with the Tigers, who took Friday’s contest, 6-4. <\/p>\n
Air Force will be the top seed in the AHA playoffs based on tiebreakers. <\/p>\n
“It was a great weekend of hockey, and I think it’s fair that the teams share this championship,” said RIT coach Wayne Wilson. “They’re two great teams that played each other evenly.”<\/p>\n
“It’s the way it should be,” agreed Air Force coach Frank Serratore. “The teams had exactly the same records.”<\/p>\n
Both teams finished 20-6-2 in league play and split their season series 2-2. Air Force outscored RIT 11-10 in those four games, and gets the top seed based on that tiebreaker. <\/p>\n
After a wild game on Friday that saw 74 shots on goal including 40 for RIT, this contest was a more tightly played affair, with Air Force limiting RIT to just 18 shots. <\/p>\n
“We can’t get into a reckless game with (RIT),” said Serratore. “Our strength is skating ability and they have savvy players that capitalize on mistakes. We didn’t make as many mistakes tonight.”<\/p>\n
RIT senior Brennan Sarazin opened the scoring at 4:25 of the first period, taking a feed from Tyler Brenner and beating Air Force goaltender Andrew Volkening five-hole.<\/p>\n
The Falcons would take the lead in the second period with a pair of goals by Olson, his eighth and ninth of the season. At 6:13, he scored on the power play, walking in on RIT goaltender Louis Menard and putting a wrist shot over his shoulder. Olson would score again at 16:40 off a goalmouth feed from Tim Kirby.<\/p>\n
“Olson had a great game,” said Serratore. “He’s been up and down for us this season, but tonight he played like the Brent Olson of old.”<\/p>\n
Blake Page would get an insurance goal for the Falcons at 7:59 of the third period on a wraparound, with assists going to Scott Kozlak and Brett Nylander.<\/p>\n
Volkening picked up his 23rd win of the season, finishing with 17 saves. Menard made 22 saves and lost for just the second time in league play this season (8-2-2).<\/p>\n
“We didn’t work hard enough tonight,” said Wilson. “We had the championship in our back pocket from last night, and were a little complacent. Credit Air Force. They worked extremely hard.”<\/p>\n
Both teams have a bye in the first round of the AHA playoffs, and will host quarterfinal best-of-three series the weekend of March 13-15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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