Bentley Takes on Sacred Heart This Weekend; Friday’s Game on NESN Plus
The Matchup: The Bentley hockey team will take to the ice this weekend against Sacred Heart in a home and home series. Friday's series opener at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Conn., can be seen live on NESN Plus and is slated to begin at 8:30. The series will then shift to the JAR on Saturday night.
This weekend's games will be Bentley's first this season against Sacred Heart, who the Falcons eliminated from the Atlantic Hockey playoffs last season two games to one in the first round. Bentley enters the weekend 2-1-1 in its last four games and 5-7-4 in Atlantic Hockey for 14 points, which has them in 8th place, four points out of the top-five.
Sacred Heart hosted Holy Cross last weekend, and came away with three points with a 2-1 win and 2-2 tie. The Pioneers are 6-11-1 in Atlantic Hockey for 13 points entering the weekend, which has them T-9th place in the standings.
Follow the Games: Friday's game will be on NESN Plus in Massachusetts, via the American Sports Network. Those in other areas can find a channel listing for ASN here. The game will not be streamed on Atlantic Hockey.TV, though Saturday's game at the JAR will be as usual.
Last Time Out: Bentley split at Niagara last weekend. The Falcons took the first game 6-3, but dropped the second contest 3-1. In the victory, Bentley scored within at least the opening 2:31 of each period. They led 2-1 going into the 3rd period, and scored four times in the final frame. Captain Max French struck on the power play 33 seconds into the period. Niagara answered back at 5:50, but Kyle Schmidt restored the two goal advantage at 13:48. Niagara struck back again just over a minute later, but just 13 seconds after that, Matt Riggleman made it a 5-3 game at 15:08. Schmidt added an empty-net goal with 1:31 left to seal the 6-3 victory.
On Saturday, Bentley outshot Niagara 38-30, but couldn't get much past goalie Joe O'Brien in the 3-1 defeat. Jake Ahlgren had the Falcon goal at 10:51 of the 3rd period.
Schmidt Named Player of Week: Schmidt became the first Falcon this season to be named Atlantic Hockey Player of the Week on Tuesday. He had two goals and one assist in Friday's win at Niagara, and also assisted on Ahlgren's goal on Saturday. It's the first career time to win the award for Schmidt, who leads the team in goals this season with 10 and is 2nd in points with 19.
Entering Friday's game, Schmidt has a five-game point streak going with four goals and three assists. That's tied for the longest by a Bentley player this season, with French and freshman Ryner Gorowsky also going on five-game streaks.
Alexey Solovyev (Oct. 18) and Brett Orr (Jan. 10) have been named Defenseman of the Week this season, and Gorowsky (Dec. 6 & 13) has twice been chosen as Rookie of the Week.
French Named Candidate for Senior CLASS Award: French was chosen as one of just 15 student-athletes in Division I men's hockey to be named a candidate for the Senior CLASS Award, which recognizes student-athletes that excel on and off the ice. To qualify, the student-athlete must have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition.
10 finalists will be named in February, and the winner will be chosen at the Frozen Four in April. Former Bentley players Alex Grieve (2014) and Andrew Gladiuk (2016) have been voted candidates in recent years.
Series Notes: Sacred Heart has a slight edge in the all-time series at 29-27-6. These two teams have played a lot in recent seasons, 25 times since 2010-11, which Bentley is 12-10-3 in those games. That includes two playoff series. The Falcons won a first round series at the JAR last season, two games to one. They were victorious in the deciding game three, 4-1.
They also played in the 2012 first round at the JAR, a two games to one series victory for Bentley.