Bentley Closes Out Regular Season Against AIC
The Matchup: The Bentley hockey team will close out the 2013-14 regular season this weekend with a home-and-home series against Atlantic Hockey rival the AIC Yellow Jackets. Friday night's game takes place in Watertown at Ryan Arena where the team's seven seniors will be honored on Senior Night. The regular season comes to a close one night later as the series shifts to the Olympia Ice Center in Springfield. Both games begin at 7:05 pm.
The Falcons were swept in a full weekend for the first time all season against Sacred Heart last weekend, falling to the Pioneers by score of 5-4 and 5-2. Still, they will enter play this weekend second in the AHA with 32 points and in control of its own destiny for a first round bye.
The Yellow Jackets were swept by Holy Cross last weekend by scores of 5-1 and 4-3 after a stretch where they won four out of five games. AIC will enter the weekend in a 10th-place tie in the AHA with RIT with 19 points.
Follow The Games: The subscription based America One Sports network will carry both games live. Links to free audio and live stats can be found on Bentleyfalcons.com, and in-game updates will be provided on Twitter @BentleyFalcons.
Playoff Picture: Mercyhurst clinched its first AHA regular season title last Saturday. Bentley (32 points), Air Force and UConn (31 points) and Robert Morris (30 points) are left fighting it out for the remaining three first round byes in the AHA Tournament. Bentley has the head-to-head tiebreaker over all three of the aforementioned teams, and can clinch a bye with one win this weekend. They can clinch the No. 2 seed with a win AND one loss or tie by both UConn and Air Force.
The AHA Tournament gets underway on March 7 with the 5-12 seeds playing a best-of-three first round series on the campus of the higher seed. The quarterfinals begin March 14 with the top-four seeds entering the mix against the four teams that survived the first round. That is a best-of-three series as well, with the teams reseeded and the higher seeds hosting. The semifinals and finals take place on March 21 and 22 at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, N.Y.
Senior Night: Before Friday night's game at the JAR the team's seven seniors will honored for their contributions to the program. The class consists of captain Jared Rickord, assistant captain Justin Breton, Brett Gensler, Branden Komm, Andrew Fitzstephens, Zach Marginsky and Zach Ledford. The class has helped Bentley compile 52 wins in its four years.
Approaching Two Records: Brett Gensler is approaching two more records. His 157 career points (69g, 88a) has him two points away from becoming Atlantic Hockey's all-time leading scorer since the league formed for the 2003-04 season. He would surpass the record of 158, held by Sacred Heart's Pierre-Luc O'Brien.
Gensler is also four assists away from breaking the program's career assists record, which is 91 and held by John Maguire '84.
Power Play Rolls On: Bentley's power play netted three more goals last weekend and its 27.6 percentage (35-127) on the season is second in the nation to St. Lawrence. Sophomore Andrew Gladiuk continued to pile up the power play goals with two more over the weekend against Sacred Heart, and he leads the nation with 16 extra-man goals.
His 22 total goals lead Atlantic Hockey and are tied for fourth in the nation. He's just two goals away from breaking Gensler's program Division I single-season record of 23, which he set just two seasons ago.
Century Mark: Assistant captain Alex Grieve notched his 100th career point with an assist on Friday against Sacred Heart, making him the eighth active player in the AHA to hit the century mark and the only junior on the list. Grieve's 20 goals on the year are third most in the AHA and his 37 points are sixth.
Earlier This Season: Bentley-AIC met for the first time this season on Nov. 8 in Watertown with the Yellow Jackets winning a wild game, 8-7. The Falcons jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first period, before AIC netted four unanswered goals to take a 5-4 lead. Bentley tied it on a goal by sophomore defenseman Matt Blomquist with 13 seconds left in the 2nd period, only for AIC to score again with five seconds left in the period to go back in front 6-5. The teams traded goals in the 3rd period as AIC hung on for the 8-7 victory.
Series History: Bentley leads the all-time series with AIC 24-21-4. AIC though has won the last three meetings, but before that Bentley had won five of the last six. They are 4-5-1 in the last 10 games of the series at both the JAR and the Olympia Ice Center.