By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
The RIT Tigers and Holy Cross made Atlantic Hockey history on Saturday night.
Not by scoring an absurd number of goals or by piling up a record number of shots on goal.
They participated in the first shootout in the league’s history, with Holy Cross leaving the Gene Polisseni Center with a 4-3 victory.
Crusaders winger Jake Pappalardo, a transfer from the University of Maine, scored the only goal in the tie-breaker shootout. He used a series of dekes and head fakes before finally tucking the puck in around RIT goalie Logan Drackett.
The shootout and a new overtime format debuted in Atlantic Hockey this year, with the league adopting what western conferences have already been using.
RIT had opened a 2-0 lead in the firsts 14 minutes of regulation but needed an extra-attacker goal by senior forward Shawn Cameron with 64 seconds remaining in the third period to force overtime.
“I’m happy we tied it but I don’t think we deserved the two points,” Tigers coach Wayne Wilson said after his team slipped to 6-1-1 overall and 3-0-0-1 in Atlantic Hockey.
If the records look a little confusing, they are. Under the tie-breaking format used by all NCAA leagues, teams play five minutes of overtime at five-on-five skating.
Atlantic Hockey, as well as the Big Ten, NCHC and WCHA then play another five minutes of three-on-three, and if the game remains tied, they use an inning-by-inning sudden death shootout.
Saturday night’s shootout lasted just two rounds. Holy Cross goalie Matt Radomsky denied Jake Hamacher and RIT’s Logan Drackett stopped Logan Ferguson.
In the second round, RIT’s Alden Dupuis couldn’t maintain control on his final move and then Pappalardo won it for the Crusaders.
As far as the NCAA is concerned, the game ended in a 3-3 tie. Only the first is recognized as part of the official game, so no statistics after the first five-minute overtime count.
In terms of points in the standings, victories in regulation or in the first overtime period are worth three points; the loser gets nothing. Once the game goes to a second overtime, both teams are guaranteed a point, with the winner getting an extra point.
Jake Joffe scored his first goal of the season to give RIT a 1-0 lead 12:02 into the game. Will Calverley then scored 1:57 later, his third.
Holy Cross sliced the deficit to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 18:43, then scored twice in the first 12 minutes of the third period to move ahead 3-2.
“They beat Providence, they tied Northeastern, so those games along tell us they’re very capable,” Wilson said of Holy Cross. “They worked harder than we did.”
Cameron’s goal off a perfect across-the-slot pass by Jake Hamacher tied the score. The goal was Cameron’s team-leading fifth, and his first not scored on the power play.
Cameron is well on his way to surpassing his career high of nine, scored last season.
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