Photo Credit: Kelsey Lee-Violet Turtle Photography

“Get the train rolling” Louis Lindner was rather succinct in what he hopes the series sweep of Air Force will accomplish. The rookie had a big role today in generating offense from the blue line to help his team earn the sweep. He said of his coach’s confidence in him that “it means a lot to me.. they trust me and I just try to put in a good game.”

Head Coach Eric Lang was succinct in his thoughts on the evening, saying “that game will have great legs for us as our season progresses. We stayed unbelievably positive and found a way. That’s what good teams do.” For AIC to get back to the mountaintop of Atlantic Hockey, they need to continue this in their busy schedule ahead.

AIC nearly gave up three points with allowing three goals in the third. Lang and the staff never panicked and never thought of calling a timeout to steady the ship. Instead they relied on their veterans to steer the ship through rocky waters caused by the Falcons stellar come back in the third. The veterans paid Lang and his staff back big time.

Austen Long, the big junior forward who was playing as the extra forward put home the game winner tonight equaling his goal total from all of last year. The depth of the team showed through tonight as they had to fight in order to keep the Falcons off the scoreboard the rest of the way. In addition to all of that, the goal came just after the Falcons hit the crossbar. AIC did let the Falcons hang around too long, not being able to get anything on backup Guy Blessing until Long’s marker, and forcing Jake Kucharski to make several big saves, including a penalty shot stop in the second.

With all of that said, the Yellow Jackets now find themselves, on points percentage, first in Atlantic Hockey. If they can focus and not let Holy Cross dictate anything this weekend, then they can use their two games in hand on Bentley to make up the raw point difference as Eric Lang’s group once again will need contributions from everyone as they got tonight to earn more big points down the stretch of the always tough competition in Atlantic Hockey play.