For the second night in a row Fairfield (2-8, 1-5 MAAC) doubled its opponent’s shot total, but came up short against the Yellow Jackets of AIC (3-5, 2-4 MAAC) 4-2 at the Wonderland of Ice.
Fairfield charged out of the gate early in the first period, peppering AIC’s Frank Novello with 15 shots without a goal. AIC, which had five bids hit the net in the first frame, opened the scoring at 17:15 when Ron Miller slipped past the Fairfield defense, caught a pass from Andy Luhovy and beat the Stags goaltender Mike Wolfe five hole.
The Yellow Jackets doubled the margin at 6:12 of the second on a when Mike Bujdos’ shot from the point found the back of the net off a faceoff, but Ryan Tormey picked a Rae Metz aerial pass out of the air and into the net on a power play to bring the Stags within one.
At 4:09 of the third, Miller helped bring AIC’s lead back to two when he chipped a loose puck past a Fairfield defender, walked in on a two-on-none and dished to Luhovy, who beat the diving Wolfe.
Jonathan Wyson brought Fairfield back within one when he picked off a cross-ice breakout pass and beat Novello to the far side with a wrist shot.
With 1:08 remaining, Fairfield called time out and pulled its goaltender, but a blue-line turnover gave Miller his second goal of the night on the empty net.
The final shot margin was 42-18 in favor of Fairfield. The Stags were 1-6 on the power play, and were a perfect 6-6 on the penalty kill. Wolfe, in his first career start at the Wonderland, made 15 saves. Novello had 40 saves on the night for AIC.
