RIT HOLDS OFF AIC HOCKEY 3-2
West Springfield, Mass. (January
26, 2007).- Visiting Rochester Institute of Technology
opened up a 3-0 first period lead and withstood an American
International College rally to post a 3-2 Atlantic Hockey victory
Saturday afternoon at the Olympia Ice Center. RIT is now
16-8-2 and 15-4-1 in Atlantic Hockey while AIC is 4-20-0 and 4-17-0
in the league.
RIT stormed out to a 3-0 first period lead, scoring the game's first goal at the 1:14 mark when Darrell Draper scored on feeds from Simon Lambert and Anton Kharin. The Tigers would make it 2-0 at the 4:28 mark when Kharin scored his ninth goal of the season when he slid a pass from Draper past AIC goalie Tom Fenton (Sarnia, Ontario). RIT would make it 3-0 with 3:05 before the first intermission when Brennan Sarazin took advantage of a turnover at the AIC blue line and scored his sixth of the season. Steve Pinizzotto assisted on the tally.
American International would score the only goal of the second period to make it a 3-1 contest after two periods. With five seconds remaining on a power play Jeason Lecours (Sherbrooke, Quebec) would bang one home from the left faceoff circle at 5:08, with Josh Froese (Winkler, MB) and Matt Woodard (St. Louis Park, Minn.) assisting on the goal.
AIC would make it a 3-2 game 2:24 into the third period when Jereme Tendler (Viceroy, SK) would score an unassisted shorthand tally, collecting a turnover at the Yellow Jacket blue line and skating in alone on RIT goalie Louis Menard. That would be the only goal of the stanza, as AIC could not net the equalizer, even with pulling Fenton for the final 38 seconds.
Menard would make 31 saves en route to the victory as AIC outshot RIT 33-30. Fenton made 27 stops for the Yellow Jackets.
AIC returns to action Tuesday evening when it hosts Army
in a 7:00 game at the Olympia Ice Center.