Three things from this past weekend in Atlantic Hockey:
One streak snapped; one goes on
On Friday, Rochester Institute of Technology accomplished something it had not in 20 previous meetings with Niagara: defeated the Purple Eagles during the regular season. Niagara was 12-1-7 against the Tigers dating back to 2005 when RIT made the move to Division I, with the Tigers only win coming in the 2012 playoffs.
On Friday, Matt Garbowsky had a pair of goals to lead RIT to a 4-1 win at the Polisseni Center.
But on Saturday, another streak lived on. Niagara has never lost to RIT at Dwyer Arena, and the Purple Eagles kept it that way with a 1-1 tie to move to 9-0-5 all-time there against the Tigers. Both goals in the game were scored in a 49 second span late in the first period.
The teams will play another home-and-home weekend on Feb. 6 and 7.
Scorers, we got ’em
Speaking of Garbowsky, he scored RIT’s only goal on Saturday as well, giving him three on the weekend to briefly lead all of Division I with 14 goals on the season.
But the following afternoon, Bentley’s Andrew Gladiuk pulled even with Garbowsky, scoring his 14th of the season in a 5-2 win at American International. Gladiuk added two assists to go into the holiday break with 27 points, tied with Boston University’s Jack Eichel for most in the nation.
Four of the five national leaders in points are from Atlantic Hockey: Gladiuk (27), Cody Wydo From Robert Morris (25), Max French from Bentley (24) and Garbowsky (23).
Nothing settled
Robert Morris and Mercyhurst battled to a split in their only meetings of the regular season with the Colonials jumping out to an early lead on Saturday and rolling to a 7-4 win. RMU got goals from seven different players, with Wydo chipping in a goal and three assists.
Mercyhrust relied on senior goaltender Jimmy Sarjeant on Sunday in a 3-0 win to earn the split. Robert Morris outshot Mercyhurst 41-17 but could not solve Sarjeant, who recorded his second shutout of the season and third in his career.
When the dust settled, Robert Morris remained in first place by five points over Bentley and Holy Cross, while Mercyhurst sits tied for fourth, but with at least two games in hand on the teams above it in the standings.
