Before coming to RPI, Appert served nine years as an assistant coach at Denver. “It was an odd feeling, it really was, especially so soon,” said Appert of his return to Magness Arena.

The Pioneers came out hard in the first period, striking first at the 13:21 mark on a power play. Brock Trotter found the twine just over the top of junior Jordan Alford’s leg pad after a rebound kicked out following a shot from the point by Pioneer senior defenseman Adrian Veideman.

“We started on our heels a little bit. I think their speed surprised us a little bit. Boston University is a big, physical, strong team, but Denver can fly. Their speed and stick skill put us on our heels a little bit in the first period. They were very good early,” remarked Appert on the first period of play.

In spite of two more RPI penalties, Alford held Denver’s lead to one goal for the remainder of the period by making countless point-blank saves. At the end of the first period the Engineers were out-shot by the pioneers 5 to 14.

A late first-period penalty started the Engineers off shorthanded at the beginning of the second frame of play. RPI returned to the ice in the second period with greater poise. The Engineers were creating more scoring opportunities, hitting harder and skating faster.

Denver was called for a minor roughing penalty midway through the second period. This created a 5-on-3 opportunity for the Engineers. Senior Kevin Broad left a drop pass for junior Jonathan Ornelas in the high slot of the offensive zone. Ornelas fed a pass to senior Kirk MacDonald, who was breaking down the right side of the zone. MacDonald fired a shot to the upper left corner of the net to tie the game 1-1. Alford continued to remain strong in the net, making yet another point-blank save just as time expired on the period.

The Engineers had a bit of a slow start to the third period. However, five minutes into the period, sophomore Seth Klerer rushed the puck up the left side of the ice following a Pioneer turnover. Klerer returned the jar of jam back to the top shelf of junior Peter Mannino’s net with a snipe from the top of the left circle, thereby giving the Engineers a 2-1 lead; sophomore Kurt Colling and senior Oren Eizenman had the assists on the goal. “I just tried to look off the defenseman to make him think I was going to pass it. Then I just tried to aim short-side and luckily it went in,” said Klerer.

Alford continued to make saves on shots fired from every direction. In the last few minutes of play, the Engineers saw a lot of pressure from the Pioneer offense. Alford stood strong, helping to secure the win with an outstanding 38 saves throughout the night. “The defense did a great job of boxing guys out; when they do that it’s easy for me to grab the puck,” said Alford about the support he received from the defense.

Saturday night the Engineers returned to Magness Arena to faceoff with the Denver Pioneers in the second game of the series. RPI stormed the Pioneer zone early in the first period, testing goaltender Glenn Fisher often.

Despite the early pressure from the Engineers, Denver would be first to put a tally on the scoreboard with a power play goal from Pioneer center Ryan Dingle. The first period was riddled with penalties, six out of 13 total in the game. RPI would skate short three more times in the first period. However, Denver would be unable to foster a greater lead as the Engineers continued to play an aggressive penalty kill throughout the series.

The Engineers answered the early Pioneer goal at the 6:39 mark of the second period. Senior forward Kirk MacDonald entered the zone, and passed to senior defenseman Jake Luthi, who quickly sent the puck over to junior winger Jake Morissette. Morissette fired the puck into the wide-open net. The textbook power play goal tied the Engineers 1-1 with the Pioneers.

RPI continued to pressure Denver throughout the duration of the second period, but still could not find the back of the net. “I thought in the first two periods we played better than we did last night. We probably had some of the better scoring looks; a crossbar, a few mini-breakaways and 2 on 1’s. Offensively we stretched them, we attacked, and we played how we wanted to play. Yet, we didn’t execute the final part of that, putting it in the net. You have to give a lot of credit to Glenn Fisher for that,” said Appert. The Engineers gave up a late second period goal to give the Pioneers a 2-1 lead.

RPI started the third period appearing to have succumbed to the speed of Denver’s offense. “As the game went on tonight, Denver’s speed and skill—especially in the third period—started to take over; they put us on our heels,” said Appert.

Sophomore goaltender Mathias Lange gave up a goal early in the third period as Tyler Teugsegger fired a bullet high stick side. The goal put Denver up 3-1. The third period was again littered with RPI penalties, one of which would lead to another Pioneer goal at the 16:11 mark.

With 2:26 left to go in the game a scrum in front of the team benches broke out. This resulted in matching roughing penalties for RPI and then Pioneers. In addition the Pioneers received a minor penalty. Six seconds after the penalties were sorted out Lange was pulled from the RPI net in an effort to capitalize on the power play opportunity. With a 6-on-4 man advantage the Engineers still couldn’t put together any offense. With 1:39 left in the game, Denver’s Steven Cook sent a shot from the far blue line into the back of the Engineers empty net to seal the deal.

The final score from Saturday’s game was 5-1. The Engineers were out-shot 22 to 31 by the Pioneers. Each team walked away with a win this weekend. “For our program this was a good weekend, we got a good gauge just like we did with Boston University. Where we’re strong, some areas of weakness, what we need to continue to improve upon as we start looking to league play coming up pretty soon,” said Appert after the loss to Denver.

Coach Appert seemed pleased overall with the outcome of the weekend. He remarked on things that will make the team better come league play, “We still need to work on our team conditioning to play back to back games. We want to play a speed, up-tempo, attack style game. You have to be in great shape to do that.”