Air Force didn’t wait long to turn the page on a season that fell short of the program’s well-established expectations.

Rising senior Matt Pulver was selected the Falcons’ captain for the 2019-20 season in a recent vote by returning players.

Pulver’s selection in mid-April stood in contrast to last season, when tri-captains Evan Giesler, Matt Koch and Matt Serratore weren’t named until the team reconvened in the fall. In last season’s case, the coaching staff wanted to see who emerged from a veteran team. Ultimately, three more seniors – Dan Bailey, Evan Feno and Kyle Haak – wore assistant captain “A’s” in a reflection of how strong the class was.

“Pretty quickly after the season, the coaches told us we going to vote within the next couple weeks,” Pulver said. “They wanted to have someone in the leadership position for the spring workouts and the summer and early fall, to make sure guys are dialed in and we have a leadership presence.”

The process was as simple as players writing their top three choices on a piece of paper and handing it to the coaches before a weight-room session.

In Pulver the Falcons have selected a captain who knows a thing or two about overcoming adversity, not to mention visits to the weight room. This, after all, is a player who recovered from season-ending shoulder surgeries during his first two years at the Academy. After playing in 28 games combined in those two seasons, he played in all 36 for the Falcons last season, and was selected the co-recipient of the team’s most improved player award (with Bailey) earlier this month.

“I’m pleased our players selected Matt Pulver to represent them as their captain,” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said in a news release. “Matt’s toughness, blue collar work ethic and unrelenting will to succeed are traits our present group must possess in order to be successful as a team.”

PODCAST: Pulver discusses the captaincy

Pulver, who previously was a captain of his Midget 16U AAA team in Omaha, said if there is one leader he wants to emulate it would be former Falcons captain Dylan Abood, who wore the “C” both of the seasons Pulver sustained his shoulder injuries.

“He had every leadership trait that anyone could ever ask for,” Pulver said. “He’s someone I strive to be and look up to. Hopefully I can be half as good of a leader as he was. He showed me the ways to be a good leader and a quality person. I owe him a lot.”

The Falcons are coming off a 16-15-5 season, their fewest wins since 2015 and only the third time in the past nine years they didn’t win 20 games. Air Force’s season ended short of the Atlantic Hockey final four for the first time in four seasons as it was swept by Niagara in a home quarterfinal series. That came on the heels of consecutive AHC playoff titles, NCAA Tournament berths and elite eight appearances.

It’s fair to ask how the Falcons will respond to a season that didn’t go as planned. How the Falcons approach this offseason unquestionably will affect how they fare next season, which comes on the heels of graduating the two winningest classes in the program’s 52-year history.

“I was wondering how the guys were going to react after the season, what their mentality was going to be,” Pulver said.

He got his answer in short order.

“The workouts we’ve had the past few weeks, I’ve never seen us work this hard since I’ve been here,” Pulver said. “Guys are fired up. You can tell this sense of pride that we have in the room. We know we underachieved at the end of the year, and we know that’s not acceptable in our organization because we have a winning culture.

“We’re going to do everything we can to get back to those winning ways.”

Pulver said his class, which includes fellow forwards Erich Jaeger, Pierce Pluemer, Trevor Stone, Brady Tomlak and Joe Tryan, is laser  focused now.

“We have a really good class with some really good attitudes,” Pulver said. “We want to leave our mark the best way we can.”

The process to doing that has already begun.

©First Line Editorial 2019