RIT extended their conference unbeaten streak to 12 with a 2-0 victory over Holy Cross. The last four games (3-0-1) in the streak were against the Crusaders.
The Tigers scored two first period goals in less than a minute and got 22 saves by Jared DeMichiel for the shutout.
“I thought all the periods were really good if you look at the opportunities that we missed,” RIT coach Wayne Wilson said. “We have to keep finishing off our chances. I thought it was a good job defensively as well and that’s just as important, and we didn’t get frustrated, and we did a good job.”
“I thought the first period things got away from us,” Holy Cross coach Paul Pearl said. “And then in the second and third, I thought we played great. We can’t let happen what happened in the first. I thought it was a very gutsy performance for us to hang in there because they are a very good team. At the same time, we made our own problems for ourselves. You can’t fall behind 2-0 on the road. It’s too tough a place to do that.”
RIT’s best scoring chances early in the game ironically came on Holy Cross’ first power play, but the Tigers could not pop one in.
At 13:29 of the first period, the scoring began and then quickly stopped. With the man advantage, Cameron Burt brought the puck down the middle. He had an open Tyler Brenner to his right, but decided to dish it off to his left to a streaking Andrew Favot, who one-timed it past Thomas Tysowsky without slowing down.
Fifty-three seconds later, the Tigers had a 2-0 lead on another quick score. Brent Alexin fed Taylor McReynolds sitting in the slot. McReynolds easily fired it into the net.
An uneventful second period, just one penalty on each side and only six shots apiece, went by without any change in scoring, despite a few good opportunities and Holy Cross starting to get take back some control of the game.
The third period again saw even play and close to even shots as Holy Cross tried to get on the scoreboard.
“We had a heck of a lot chances,” Pearl said. “We had a breakaway. We hit a post. We missed an open net. It’s not like the opportunity wasn’t there. Did we have as many as we would like? Probably not.”
Holy Cross called time out late in the game and then eventually pulled their goalie with 1:20 left, but applied minimum pressure on DeMichiel, who was able to hold onto his shutout.
“I thought he played well last night as well,” Wilson said of his goaltender. “He was stopping the puck extremely well. He’s been really stellar for us this year. He’s having a great year. He, just like the rest of the team, needs to keep working on the things he needs to get better at.”
Tysowsky wound up with 28 saves.
RIT remains one point behind first place. However, RIT has four games in hand.
“We talk about we got those four games in hand, but if you lose one all of a sudden you’re down to three games in hand. It disappears quickly,” Wilson said. “So you just have to focus on your games.”
RIT (11-8-1, 11-2-1) travels to Connecticut next weekend for a pair.
“It’s important we keep moving forward,” Wilson said. “We’ve played well on the road.”
Holy Cross (5-12-4, 4-8-3) plays a home-and-home against AIC with the first game at Holy Cross on Friday.
“We don’t tell them to forget anything,” Pearl said about the games against RIT. “We’re trying to learn. We’re trying to get better by learning from the mistakes. If anything, we are not going to forget it. We’re going to learn from what we did wrong this weekend, and I think that will help us against AIC. They have a very good team, also.”
