Bentley Closes out Regular Season with Holy Cross Series; Friday's Game at Home
The Matchup: Bentley will close out the regular season this weekend with a home and home series against Atlantic Hockey rival Holy Cross. Friday's game takes place at Bentley Arena, before the series shifts to Worcester on Saturday night. Both games begin at 7:05 pm.
The Falcons had a bye last weekend and last were in action at RIT on Feb. 14-15. They enter the weekend in 8th place in the Atlantic Hockey standings with 35 points, and can clinch home-ice advantage in the first round of the AHA playoffs with one point.
Holy Cross will come into the weekend in 9th place with 32 points. They can finish anywhere from 6th to 10th place in the standings. Last weekend they were swept by AIC on the road by scores of 4-1 and 2-0.
Follow the Games: The games will be broadcast live on FloHockey.TV, which requires a subscription.
Fans can also follow live stats at the following link: https://bentleyfalcons.com/sports/mice/2019-20/schedule
Tickets for Friday's game are available at https://www.etix.com/ticket/v/12892/the-bentley-arena
Earlier This Season: Bentley and Holy Cross played a home and home series earlier this season, back on Nov. 29-30 in a Falcons sweep. The first game was played in Worcester and was a 3-2 Bentley victory. Each team scored once in the first and second periods; Ryner Gorowsky in the first and Brendan Hamblet in the second for the Falcons. With the score tied 2-2 in the third period, sophomore Jakov Novak scored the winner at the 13:38 mark.
One night later Bentley skated to a 4-1 victory at the Arena. Novak scored a power play goal in the first period. The Falcons then exploded for three goals in the second period. Two of the goals came just over a minute apart, from freshman Matt Gosiewski and senior Jonathan Desbiens at 4:50 and 5:45, respectively. Sophomore Dylan Pitera added a goal at 17:10 to make it a 4-0 lead. Fraser Kirk made 33 saves to earn the win in goal, and only had his shutout bid ended with 12 seconds remaining.
Things to Know: Two weekends ago at RIT, senior defenseman Brett Orr notched his 50th career point with a goal in the first game of the series.
Jonathan Desbiens had an assist on Orr's goal for his 94th career point. That moved him into 13th place for career points in the program's Division I history. He's one point away from moving into a tie for 12th. His 47 career goals is 9th most in the program's Division I history.
Juniors Brendan Hamblet and Michael Zuffante are both two games away from reaching 100 career games. Seven players on the roster have already surpassed 100 career games; seniors Jonathan Desbiens (135), Brett Orr (135), Jake Kauppila (127), Connor Brassard (127), Matt Riggleman (124), Ryner Gorowsky (120) and junior Luke Santerno (104).
Entering the final weekend of the regular season, Jakov Novak is tied for the third leading scorer in the AHA with 30 points (16, 14a). He ranks tied for fourth in goals.
Freshman Matt Gosiewski is second in the league in points among rookies (23) and tied for first in goals (10).
In 10 career games against Holy Cross, Desbiens has three goals and four assists. Ryner Gorowsky has three goals and two assists.