Photo Credit: Army West Point Athletics

For the Black Knights of Army West Point, they faced another challenge this week. The Purple Eagles of Niagara have proven that their sweep over Omaha was a sign of positives to come for them. They are challenging for an Atlantic Hockey title and play the structured game every coach in this league likes. Tonight the Black Knights moved to 4-0-1 in their last five games and have a lot of positives to talk a about. Justin Evenson got his second shutout of the year, and the team in front of him helped him out.

Head Coach Brian Riley was proud of his team, lead by Ricky Lyle who potted two goals on the night. He also played his power forward role well and made life tough for the Purple Eagles. He said of it that the game was , “ as complete of a game as we’ve had all year. In order to beat Niagara you have to play well. They are a really dangerous team and with them you have to control the middle of the ice.”

On the platoon at goalie the team has had since starting their mini 4-0-1 run, Riley shared what he tells his goalies before each weekend. “All we have to do is worry about 60 minutes.”

On the protocol violation penalty Army took for taking a little too long to get off the ice at the end of warmups, Riley was blunt. He said “ I think it is so dumb that they’re impacting the game with nothing to do on the game. The rules are what they are. I told our guys that better not happen to us again.” Army dodged an early pitfall with averting a power play goal on that violation.

For the finale Riley said that , “we’re just going ti have to try to slow them down. They’re a skilled team that plays with pace.”

Riley is happy that his team is getting better but said “We don’t want to settle for good. The good news for us is that we’ve been in all these close games, tonight was another example.”

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