Only history stood between Mercyhurst goaltender Jordan Tibbett and his second consecutive shutout on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Tibbett allowed one goal in the Lakers’ 4-1 win over Connecticut in the Atlantic Hockey semifinal at Blue Cross Arena, a first-period dribbler by winger Trevor Gerling that was swatted clear of the Mercyhurst net the moment it crossed the goal line.<\/p>\n
[scg_html_aha2013]It led to the first-ever video replay in the AHA playoffs, confirming that Tibbett had allowed his first goal since the second period of the Lakers’ 3-2 win over Holy Cross in the opening game of the quarterfinals last Friday.<\/p>\n
“The puck jumped on his stick and made its way through my body,” Tibbett said. “They called it a goal.”<\/p>\n
Did he think it was in?<\/p>\n
“I think we’ll go with what the ref said,” Tibbett responded dryly.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-1, 185-pound goaltender from Indianapolis was not beaten again. Tibbett — 4-0 in the Atlantic Hockey playoffs with four goals allowed, including a 1-0 shutout in last Sunday’s quarterfinal elimination game at Holy Cross — stopped 31 shots and held down the fort while the Lakers found their legs after a wobbly first period.<\/p>\n
“He’s a great goaltender,” Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin said. “He’s also a great kid. … We’ve seen Jordan, the past two years, show signs of becoming the kind of goaltender that we’ve seen these last couple of weeks.”<\/p>\n
The Huskies labeled 12 shots on Tibbett in both the first and second period, and — down 2-1 — opened the third period with a flurry at Tibbett’s doorstep. But the junior, who was chased from the pipes in the second period of Mercyhurst’s 5-4 loss at Connecticut on Jan. 18, did not bend.<\/p>\n
Tibbett entered the game with a 6-6-1 record and a 2.40 goals against average. He has been part of an effective tandem with senior netminder Max Strang, who posted a 12-10-3 record and a .923 save percentage. Strang is 1-1 in the Atlantic Hockey playoffs this season.<\/p>\n
“We’ve really been in a goaltending rotation,” Gotkin said. “The only time we stopped was when Jordan was hurt for a couple weeks. The rotation is something we were very excited about. It’s something we recognized going in that Max was going to graduate, win, lose or tie, but we had a guy in Jordan Tibbett that could flat-out play. We needed to develop him as well.”<\/p>\n
The Lakers will face Canisius in the AHA championship game on Saturday. Strang faced the Golden Griffins in each of the team’s three matchups this season, posting a 2-1 record with 92 total stops.<\/p>\n
Gotkin, however, has no intention of overthinking the situation with an NCAA tourney berth on the line.<\/p>\n
“Clearly, at this stage of the game, Jordan has emerged,” Gotkin said. “It was easy to play him again today, and I don’t think you need to be Scotty Bowman to know he’s going to play again tomorrow.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The goaltender held down the fort while the Lakers found their legs after a wobbly first period. Ben Kirst reports from the Atlantic Hockey Championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[705],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n