By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
Winning Atlantic Hockey’s regular season championship is nice, but in reality, it provides nothing but a trophy.
Rochester Institute of Technology found out the hard way last year.
Become AHA playoff champions and you not only get hardware but also a berth in the NCAA tournament, which has been RIT’s goal since the puck dropped to start the season.
The top-seeded Tigers, who repeated as Atlantic Hockey regular-season champs, took step one in what they see as a five-step postseason process on Friday night by throttling 11th-seeded Robert Morris 7-0 in Game 1 of the best-of-three quarterfinals.
Freshman linemates Tyler Fukakusa, Matthew Wilde and Christian Catalano combined for four goals and goalie Tommy Scarfone stopped 21 shots for his fourth shutout of the season as the Tigers set a program record for largest margin of victory in a playoff game.
“We came out firing on all cylinders,” said Fukakusa, who scored the second and sixth goals for the 19th-ranked Tigers (23-10-2).
Wilde scored the first goal, Gianfranco Cassaro the third, Tyler Wilkie the fourth, Catalano the fifth and Grady Hobbs the seventh, although this was hardly a blowout for two periods.
The Colonials (11-24-3) and goalie Chad Veltri kept RIT scoreless through the first 32 minutes. But when Wilde converted on RIT’s first power play, breaking the scoreless tie at 12:37 of the second period, the Tigers assumed command, then galloped away with a six-goal third period.
“You never know when it’s going to break open so you have to be patient,” RIT coach Wayne Wilson said.
Wilde’s goal at least gave the Tigers a bit of comfort. They were by no means under siege when the game was scoreless, but they also didn’t need the underdog Colonials or Veltri to gain confidence.
The play began at the blue line with Carter Wilkie, who handed off to Cassaro at the right point. Cassaro whipped the puck to the bottom of the right circle for Cody Laskosky, who immediately passed into the slot and Wilde slam-dunked it home.
“They do all the heavy lifting and I just have to sit in front and put in the garbage,” said Wilde, who has scored goals in six consecutive games.
The goal was his team-leading 16th, a program record for freshmen in the Division I era, and 11 have come in the 19 games since Christmas.
“That’s what he does, he scores goals, and that’s his spot.” Wilson said.
Fukakusa ignited the third-period outburst in front of 2,988 fans at the Gene Polisseni Center when he poked in a loose puck at 2:14, after Veltri thought he had it covered near the right post.
“It was sitting kind on his toe and there was maybe a couple inches for me to put it in,” Fukakusa said.
Cassaro worked a give-and-go with Tanner Andrew to score his 15th goal, giving the Tigers a 3-0 lead at 8:37. He leads the nation in goals for defenseman for the second consecutive season.
Wilkie then lasered home a perfect calf-high wrist shot from the left wing at 11:56, zipping it past defenseman Mitch Andres at the left faceoff dot and in off the left post for his 15th goal and the rout was on.
The Tigers outshot Robert Morris 44-21. That included 29-9 over the final 28 minutes, when they turned a 0-0 deadlock into the blowout.
But winning Game 1 does not mean advance. RIT will look to finish off the Colonials on Saturday (7 p.m. puck drop). If the Colonials rebound, the deciding Game 3 would be at 5 p.m. Sunday.
“We’ve got one down but they’re just going to get tougher and tougher,” Wilson said. “We need five games to get to our goal (of playing in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016. “We know every game we play is going to be tougher than the last one.”
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