BY JONATHAN SKUZA
ROCHESTER, N.Y.– The RIT Tigers completed the weekend series sweep against the Army West Point Black Knights 4-1 in a game that had 84 combined penalty minutes Saturday evening.
“It’s good to get the win, even though we were not disciplined, really all weekend,” RIT’s head coach Wayne Wilson stated about the win. “I thought that was the difference.”
“I think our veteran players and coaching staff know what it means,” Wilson stated about the importance of the sweep early in the season. “Because these are going to be huge points.”
The RIT penalty kill had its hand full having to kill off two five-minute majors throughout the game. The Tigers managed to kill off both major penalties. RIT also had a player called for a 10-minute misconduct and a game misconduct.
Army had two players receive 10-minute misconducts and received a bench minor at the end of the first period arguing those penalties.
Despite the lack of discipline, the Tigers were able to prevail convincingly to complete the first-weekend series sweep of the season.
Gianfranco Cassaro started the Tigers out on the right foot 3:17 into the game with a beautiful wrist shot from the left circle to give RIT the lead. Carter Wilkie added to the lead with a powerplay goal from in front of the Army’s net with just under eight minutes to go in the first period.
Army’s lone goal came on the power play from John Keranen who tipped in a point shot from Anthony Firriolo with 2:35 remaining in the first.
The second saw no scoring but did see a lot of penalty action with 10 penalties called between the two teams. RIT still led by a goal through all of the rough play they endured during the contest.
Grady Hobbs put the Tigers back up two goals with a goal just after RIT killed off their second five-minute major of the game. Aiden Hansen-Bukata picked up his second goal of the series with an empty net goal with four seconds remaining.
“I thought we wanted to use that as momentum,” Wilson stated about the penalty kill building momentum for the team. “I thought last week when we played Union we killed off six penalties and we weren’t able to use it as momentum. We just had to regroup and it’s just disappointing taking all those penalties and deserving so.”
Kolby Matthews put on a stellar performance in net much like teammate Tommy Scarfone did the night prior. Matthews stopped 27 of the 28 shots he faced Saturday.
“Both goalies were the backbone of our team,” Wilson said about his goalies’ play this weekend. “I thought their goalie played well. We had zero worries about putting Kolby in. We like both of them and they’ll push each other.”
RIT will return to action Saturday, October 15 when they get their rematch with Union in the Brick City Weekend at Blue Cross Arena in downtown Rochester, NY at 7:05.
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