The Falcon hockey team finished up its non-conference series of the year last weekend going 0-1-1 against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
The icers lost the first game of the series 0-3 Friday and came back with a 2-2 tie at RPI Saturday.
“They defended their end of the rink better than we did,” said BG head coach Buddy Powers. “The first two periods we didn’t get Grade A opportunities. It comes down to our forwards not playing hard enough. A forward’s responsibility is to score goals and we didn’t do that (Friday).”
Senior walk-on James Palmer made his first career start in the net Friday for RPI. He stopped all 12 shots he faced in the first period before being replaced by Nathan Marsters to start the second period. Marsters played the final two periods and finished with 21 saves.
Tyler Masters defended the net for the Falcons and ended with 30 saves on the night.
After a scoreless first period, the Engineers’ Matt Murley broke the tie when he scored on his own rebound at 16:45 of the first period.
RPI’s second goal came at 4:40 of the third period on a wrist shot by sophomore Marc Covosie for his 11th goal of the year.
An unassisted goal by senior Andrew McPherson put the Engineers ahead, 3-0.
Each team officially ended with 33 shots on goal.
Saturday was a different story.
“There was good action at both ends of the rink,” Powers said. “We wanted to win the game, but we got ourselves a tie.”
The Falcons got out to an early 1-0 lead when Steve Brudzewski, a freshman who was stationed just outside of the crease, scored on a pass from sophomore Erik Eaton at just 2:26 in the first period.
However, RPI took advantage of a 5-on-3 power play to tie the score just 56 seconds later. Covosie took a rebound outside the crease at 3:22 to even the score at 1-1.
The Engineers took a 2-1 lead midway through the second period with their second power play goal of the contest this time by Carson Butterwick.
But the Falcons weren’t about to lose two games to RPI. They tied it at 1:42 in the third period when sophomore Ryan Wetterberg scored his fifth goal of the season after breaking in alone on Nathan Marsters.
A little over a minute later, Covosie took a slapshot that appeared to hit BG goalie Jordan Sigalet in the head. He lay on the ice for several minutes before being taken to the lockeroom.
“He’s got a pretty good headache right now,” Powers said. “He was knocked out. He’s a good young goalie.”
The Falcons are now 6-15-5 overall. They will return to Central Collegiate Hockey Association action next weekend at the University of Michigan (Jan. 25-26). The face-offs for both games are set for 7:30 p.m. at Yost Ice Arena.
