By Warren Kozireski —
Freshman Aidan Marshall scored twice while senior Hunter McCoy and sophomore defenseman Jon Bell each had a two-point game as Army defeated RIT handily 5-1 Friday night.
It marked just the seventh time the Black Knights have beaten the Tigers in the 41-game history between the teams and first since a 6-0 win in December 2021.
“That was our most complete game of the year,” Army head coach Brian Riley said. “We have a young team so I worry from game to game what we’re going to be when we go out there, but our game was good from start to finish tonight.
“Our D-corp tonight I thought was really good. We didn’t extend plays in our end because of turnovers; we’ve done that a lot this year, but we were able to manage that part of our game.”
Marshall staked Army to a 1-0 lead at 2:07 of the first period after forcing a turnover behind the RIT net, but the Tigers Simon Isabelle tied it two minutes later from Tanner Andrew.
Army then rattled off four consecutive started by sophomore Brent Keefer roofing his shot following a pass from behind the net from Nik Hong.
Sophomore defenseman Mac Gadowsky ended the first period scoring as his shot went off the skate of a Tiger and into the net at 14:19.
Marshall scored the only goal of a chippy second period redirecting a pass from Hunter McCoy to extend the leaf to 4-1.
McCoy scored his first goal of the season from Bell at 11:42 of the third to finish the scoring.
“Our last couple of times in here (Polisseni Center) have been pretty good, but over time I think you have some teams that you play well against and get some wins. Other teams just kind of have your number and that’s certainly been the case with RIT for us.”
(Photo provided by RIT Men’s Hockey/Athletic Dept.)