By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
It was senior night on Saturday for the RIT men’s hockey team.
Except, following a 4-3 loss to Mercyhurst at the Gene Polisseni Center, coach Wayne Wilson wasn’t ready to talk about the careers of Brady and Chase Norrish, Myles Powell, Max Mikowski, Liam Kearns or Matt Abt.
“I think we’ve still got a lot of hockey left,” Wilson said, referring to the upcoming Atlantic Hockey Association tournament, “so it’s a little premature to talk about that.”
How many more games isn’t known. The Tigers (14-18-2 overall, 13-14-1 AHA) are the sixth-seed and will host No. 7 Sacred Heart in the best-of-three first-round playoff series Friday, Saturday and, if needed, Sunday.
“Our mindset is that we can compete with any team in the league,” junior left winger Erik Brown said.
If only the Tigers were heading to Sacred Heart. The Polisseni Center has not been friendly. RIT went just 5-11 on home ice (compared to 9-7-1 on the road). A year ago, the Tigers were 6-13 at home. And the year before, they were just 5-8-2. That’s 16-32-2 over the past three seeasons.
But at least they’ll go into the playoffs with one of the country’s most dominant goal-scorers. Brown set an RIT single-season Division I record (28) with his two goals on Saturday. Only Northeastern’s Adam Gaudette has scored more (29).
More amazing is that Brown has scored 11 goals in the past five games. That includes five against Sacred Heart last weekend.
“I’ve just been trying to go out there with a fresh mindset every game and organize my mind that way,” Brown said. “I just try to go out and play the best game I can play.”
His task was made a little more difficult on Saturday because of minor injuries. In the first period, Chase Norrish boomed a slap shot down the slot that struck Brown on the inside of the right knee. Brown dropped to the ice as the Tigers continued to control the puck on the power play and eventually got back on his skates, though he was hunched over and in obvious pain.
Despite limping badly and barely being able to move, Brown maintained position in front of the net and Gabe Valenzuela found him with a perfect pass. Goalie Brandon Wildung stopped the first shot but Brown hobbled a step to his left and roofed the rebound.
“That (getting hit by the puck) may have actually played to my advantage,” Brown said, “because they saw I may have been hurt and maybe they didn’t think I was as dangerous.”
The Lakers tied the score before the period ended. Brown and Abt sandwiched goals around one by Mercyhurst’s James Anderson in the second period but the Lakers scored the only two goals of the third period.
Bryan Sienerth’s power-play goal in the first minute tied it, then Joseph Duszak converted off a two-on-one against goalie Logan Drackett at 6:49 and RIT ended the regular season on a three-game losing streak.
“It doesn’t matter how many goals you score in a game,” Brown said, “if you’re not winning, it doesn’t feel as good.”
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