By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
For Rochester Institute of Technology, it’s two down, one to go.
The most important one.
Last weekend the Tigers bounced Robert Morris out of the Atlantic Hockey tournament with 7-0 and 5-1 victories. This weekend they swept Niagara University, posting a 4-1 victory in Friday’s series opener before finishing off the Purple Eagles with a 5-2 victory on Saturday night.
In winning the semifinal series, the Tigers weren’t necessarily dominant or dazzling, but they were efficient and workmanlike.
And now they’re where they’ve wanted to be since Day 1 of the season, playing in Atlantic Hockey’s winner-take-all championship game, on home ice next Saturday, in front of what very likely will be a sellout crowd of 4,300.
“The biggest game is obviously the next one and we’re all itching to put a ring on our finger and hoist the cup,” said junior center Carter Wilkie, who scored the third goal on Saturday and assisted on two others as top-seeded RIT improved to 26-10-2.
This will be the Tigers first appearance in the conference title game since 2016. They’re 3-2 all-time, with victories in 2010 (the Frozen Four season), 2015 and 2016.
But history isn’t as important as the present to this group, whose season-long mission has been to avenge last year’s bitter semifinal ouster on home ice at the hands of Holy Cross.
“We all know there’s still work to do,” coach Wayne Wilson said. “We can play better and we’ll need to play better and they’ve been up to the challenge all season.”
The opponent in the 7:05 p.m. championship game will be determined on Sunday evening. No. 2 Holy Cross and No. 5 American International play a deciding third game of their semifinal series at 5 p.m. on Worcester, Mass.
The Tigers avoided a Game 3 scenario, coming to the Gene Polisseni Center on Saturday night intent on finishing the job. They were well on their way to doing just that when they built a 3-0 lead in the first period, with a crowd of 3,284 cheering them on.
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“You don’t want to play on Sunday, you don’t want to give them life, you want that extra day of rest,” Wilkie said.
The game’s first 77 seconds were actually pivotal. Tommy Scarfone, RIT’s all-AHA goaltender, made a terrific sprawling save on Carter Randklev’s rebound shot toward an open side of the net just 30 seconds into the game.
Not long after, the Tigers’ Money Line – the all-freshman trio of Tyler Fukakusa, Matthew Wilde and Christian Catalano – went sprinting the other way to score. Wilde made the quick outlet pass to spring Catalano on a two-on-one fastbreak, and he set up Fukakusa for an open-net tap-in at 1:17.
They’re the Money Line because they’re the first RIT recruits allowed to receive athletic scholarships under an NCAA rule change, and also because they’ve come up large in the postseason, producing eight goals in the four games. Fukakusa has 4 goals, 3 assists and 7 points in the playoffs; Wilde and Catalano each have 2-3-5.
Fukakusa couldn’t even play on Friday because of an illness that has swept through the Tigers roster this week.
“He couldn’t get out of bed yesterday,” Wilson said.
Elijah Gonsalves pushed the lead to 2-0 at 8:43, bursting out of the left corner and zipping a wrist shot past goalie Jarrett Fiske from the circle. An instant before Gonsalves shot, defenseman Ryan Nicholson yelled for the puck, moving in by himself from the right point. Gonsalves, however, elected to shoot.
“We were talking before the game about keeping it simple and just getting more pucks on him,” Gonsalves said, “so I was shooting.”
Plus, the play was a reenactment of a drill associate head coach Brian Hills ran in practice during the week. Defenseman Gianfranco Cassaro charged into the corner with the puck, then moved it back up the boards to Gonsalves. He took perhaps three quick strides into the circle and then fired the wrister.
“Hillsie had us working on a drill that was precisely that play; out of the corner, at the dot, far side high,” Gonsalves said.
Wilkie then provided a 3-0 cushion with an unassisted goal at 15:55. He blocked a Olivier Gauthier shot near the blue line in the RIT zone and raced the other way, lasering a shot past Fiske on the short side.
The score didn’t change until 18:57 of the second period, when defenseman Dimitri Mikrogiannakis converted a Grady Hobbs pass from the right circle.
Mikrogiannakis was another who felt poorly on Saturday but wanted to play, Wilson said. After going without a goal for the first 37 games of the season, the senior finally found the net in Game 38.
“Dimitri scoring was huge and it was really cool to see him get one,” Wilkie said.
Joked Wilson: “Some of the guys that were sick, they might want to get sick more often because they were the ones scoring.”
For the weekend, eight different players scored goals, including three by defensemen. The Tigers played the series without first-line winger Cody Laskosky (upper body injury), but Hobbs moved up into his slot and adjustments were made on other lines as well.
“We’re deep and we’re built for this stuff,” Wilkie said. “We’re ready to tackle any challenge.”
Wayne Wilson, with his longevity, and dedication, as the Tigers’ coach, deserves the Atlantic title, and a shot in the NCAA tournament again!