A strong desire amongst the RPI seniors to finally win the 56th annual Rensselaer/Bank of America Holiday Tournament was not enough for the men’s hockey team over the weekend. The Engineers have not been named champions of their annually hosted event, the oldest college hockey tournament in the United States, since 2001.
The tournament opened Friday night against the non-conference Niagara Purple Eagles. Despite being a relatively new Division I Team, Niagara played a solid game against the Engineers and never fell behind in the score all night. The Engineers allowed the first goal of the contest early in the first period, a recurring theme thus far this season, but answered back to tie the game on three separate occasions. A crucial 5-3 penalty kill by the Purple Eagles midway through the second allowed Niagara to hold on to a 4-3 lead, before a shorthanded marker by team captain Sean Bentivoglio increased the lead to 5-3.
With the Engineers trailing by two goals late in the second period, Head Coach Seth Appert replaced starting goaltender junior Jordan Alford, whose phenomenal start to the season has turned heads, with sophomore Mathias Lange. Hanging onto a two-goal cushion, the Purple Eagles managed to hold off the Engineers for the rest of the game and advance to the championship the following night against a surprisingly struggling Colgate squad.
The loss to Niagara bumped the Engineers to the consolation game against Ohio State, a traditional hockey power that has produced players such as current Vancouver Canucks forward Ryan Kesler in recent seasons. The Engineers took a comfortable 4-1 lead heading into the final 20 minutes of action thanks to the superb work of sophomore Andrei Uryadov, who netted the first hat trick of his collegiate career. The foundation of that 4-1 lead quickly crumbled in the third, as the Buckeyes stormed back by scoring four unanswered goals to take a 5-4 lead.
Needing the tying goal late in the game, Appert pulled Lange in favor of an extra attacker. The move paid off, as freshman Paul Kerins’ late game heroics knotted the score at 5-all with just 1:08 left to go in regulation. The five minute overtime period yielded no winner, so a shootout was needed to determine the official tournament standings. Senior Oren Eizenman won the game for the Engineers in the tenth round of the shoot-out, assuring RPI of the third place finish out of the four tournament competing teams. While officially the score goes down as tie in the Engineers’ overall record, as was the case with the shootout win against Union in the Governor’s Cup, Coach Appert explained that the game felt like a win.
The previous weekend, the Engineers, then the 16th ranked team in the nation, lost at home in another non-conference game against Sacred Heart. The Engineers travel west this coming weekend to play against Cornell and Colgate, respectively. The road swing comes on the heels of a season that is top-heavy in home games.
