Ice Hockey pushes past Army West Point for AHA win

SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts - The American International College ice hockey team lit the lamp five times for the second game in a row as the Yellow Jackets downed Army West Point 5-1 in Atlantic Hockey Association action on Tuesday, November 28.

AIC is now 8-5-0 overall and 5-1-0-0-0-0 in the AHA.

The Yellow Jackets jumped into the lead early as Austen Long won a corner battle and flipped the puck back to the right point for Brian Kramer. The senior captain cut to the middle and wired the game's first shot on goal into the net for his fifth of the season, lighting the lamp at 2:50.

AIC dominated the rest of the period, and was only kept from going ahead by two or three goals thanks to the spectacular work of Evan Szary in the Army net, who among other stops made an incredible pad save on an Alexander Malinowski attempt. That kept the Black Knights within striking distance, and a turnover behind the cage was wrapped around and in by Brent Keefer at 19:58.5, leaving a stunned AIC squad tied after twenty minutes.

The setback might have been deflating, but AIC came out strong in the middle frame and it paid off. Long sent the puck the other way at AIC's blueline to Brett Rylance, who fed it diagonally to Kramer on the right wing side of the attacking line. Kramer got a step on the defender and turned the corner, cutting in front of Szary before firing the puck back across to the right side of the net and in for his second of the night and sixth of the season at 8:21.

It was all AIC from there. Jordan Biro won a battle to keep the puck in at the left point and drove straight to the net with Army going the wrong way. At the last moment, he dished across to Malinowski, who was not denied of his fourth of the season on the one-timer at 11:39.

A fluke goal put the game out of reach later in the period. Dustin Manz won a faceoff and cut to the net, and from a sharp angle, Brett Callahan fired the puck at the cage. It squeaked through the arm of Szary and fell onto the goal line, where Manz dove to knock it home before Army's defense could sweep it away. The goal, at 15:03, was his first of the season.

Army pushed in the third to no avail. Drawing a late penalty, they elected to pull Szary for a 6-on-4 advantage and appeared to score, but the tally was wiped out on review as the officials ruled the puck never crossed the line. Blake Wells later blocked a shot and deflected the puck to Evan Stella, who whipped it from the faceoff dot on the left-wing side of AIC's end into the open Army net at 18:49 for a shorthanded goal, his second tally of the campaign, putting the game officially on ice.

In AIC's net, Nils Wallstrom made 22 stops to earn his seventh win of the campaign.

AIC will next play two with Sacred Heart University. The first game is Friday, December 1 at 7:05 p.m. at the Jennings-Fairchild Rink on the campus of Avon Old Farms in Avon, Connecticut, and will raise money for the Connecticut Hockey Foundation in memory of the late Sacred Heart captain Jason Pagni. The teams will then reconvene the following night, also at 7:05 p.m., at the MassMutual Center for the finale of the series.