When it rains, it pours.
The difference was this storm was welcomed by Air Force. The Falcons rained goals galore on Niagara on Friday night at Cadet Arena, taking a 6-3 Atlantic Hockey victory and snapping a nine-game losing streak.
Senior Austin Park made 21 saves for his first NCAA victory, and six different players tallied goals for the Falcons (7-14-2, 3-9-1 AHA), who won for the first time since Nov. 12, when they topped Bentley, 2-0.
After Niagara (11-10-2, 5-8-1 AHA) took a 2-0 lead midway through the second period on tallies by Lars Rodne and Casey Carreau, the Falcons went to work. Mitchell Digby scored 24 seconds after Carreau on a blast from the high slot, and Will Gavin scored on a deflection with 5:19 to go, one of several goals that was reviewed. That gave Gavin goals in three consecutive games.
Jake Marti gave the Falcons a lead they wouldn’t relinquish with one second left in the period when he buried a pass from Holt Oliphant, who later scored an empty-net goal.
Co-captain Luke Rowe’s blast from the left circle 3:25 into the third gave Air Force a 4-2 lead and proved to be the winning goal. Defense partner Brandon Koch added an empty-net goal as well.
Additionally, the Falcons also had a goal by Andrew DeCarlo negated by a coach’s challenge in the first period.
Air Force played solid team defense and limited Niagara to just 25 shots on goal. The Falcons also got their penalty kill back in order, with a 6-for-6 performance after a disastrous weekend at Holy Cross in that department. And both penalty kills were busy in the third period, when nine of the game’s 12 power plays happened.
The series concludes Saturday at 4 p.m. (FloHockey.tv, 1300 AM)
©First Line Editorial 2023
