Good things have come in threes lately for Blake Bennett, and American International hopes that continues.
Bennett’s hat trick, his second in as many games, led AIC to a 5-4 win over Mercyhurst. The Yellow Jackets (21-12-3) are a game away from their third consecutive Atlantic Hockey playoff title.
“It was an entertaining college hockey game,” said AIC coach Eric Lang. “It’s hard to get wins this time of year. We’re a resilient group. It felt like things weren’t necessarily going our way at times, but we stayed with it.”
“It was a really good hockey game,” echoed Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin. “Congratulations to Eric Lang and his players. They have a lot of seasoned guys that have been here, done that, and it showed.”
AIC dominated the early going, getting the first 10 shots on goal, but it was the Lakers who scored first. Dante Sheriff’s turnaround shot at 12:32 of the first eluded Yellow Jackets goaltender Alec Calvaruso and staked Mercyhurst to a 1-0 lead.
Things stayed that way until 2:28 of the second period when Bennett got AIC on the board. The junior was able to get behind the Mercyhurst defense and waited out Lakers goalie Kyle McClellan putting a backhand home to even the score.
Bennett stuck again at 8:34 to give the Yellow Jackets their first lead of the game. He was able to create some space in traffic and lifted a backhander past McClellan.
Mercyhurst dug deep and re-established their lead with a pair of goals two minutes apart. Austin Heidemann’s 12th of the season evened the score at 11:29, and Rylee St. Onge got his first of the game, on the power play at 13:28 with a quick wrist shot.
But AIC took over the game in the third with three consecutive goals.
Zak Galambos tied the game at 3-3 3:38 into the period, and Bennett’s third of the game gave the Yellow Jackets back the lead. He broke down the right wing and fired a shot that went between the pads of McClellan.
Bennett became just the second player in Atlantic Hockey history to register consecutive postseason hat-tricks. RIT’s Matt Smith also did it in the 2008 quarterfinals.
“Surreal,” said Bennett when asked about his hot streak. “I’ve always been a postseason player. At least I’ve told myself that. I’m just feeling really confident right now, that on any shot I can score. I’m just trying to get shots on net. If it’s three (goals), that’s nice.”
The Yellow Jackets looked to put the game away on Elijah Barriga’s empty net goal with 2:19 left, but St. Onge cut the lead to one a minute later.
But Calvurso made a pair of key saves in the final minute to preserve the win for AIC.
“‘AC’ got really good as the game went on,” said Lang. “He made some big time saves for us down the stretch.
“He was skating off after the first (goal) and said, ‘That’s my bad’. We don’t apologize for that stuff here and I told him that. I said that the guys were going to pick him up and that he’s going to have to make a big save (later) and me made more than enough big saves for us.”
Mercyhurst came into the contest on a hot streak, winning seven games in a row including an upset of second-seeded Canisius last weekend.
“You feel like you’re going to keep winning,” said Gotkin. “We’re disappointed but proud of our group. This group started the year hoping we’d be good. Then in January we started to believe we were good. The last couple weeks knew we were good.”
AIC will go for a record-tying third straight Atlantic Hockey playoff title tomorrow. The Yellow Jackets have won four straight regular-season titles but were robbed of a chance to win a playoff crown in 2020.
“We played a really good hockey game,” said Lang. “Our last few games, and this game, we’re trending in the right direction.”
