Bentley Heads to Sacred Heart This Weekend to Complete Road Swing
The Matchup: Bentley takes on Sacred Heart on Friday and Saturday afternoons on the road to complete their three weekend road swing. Friday's game begins at 4:05 PM and Saturday's game begins at 1:05 PM at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The Falcons dropped a pair of games at Army West Point last weekend. They outshot the Black Knights in both games, 33-22 on Friday and 30-26 on Saturday, but Army emerged with wins by 2-0 and 5-2 scores.
Sacred Heart was in action last night at Cornell in a non-conference game and dropped a 2-1 decision. The last time the Pioneers played an Atlantic Hockey series was Nov. 11-12 at RIT where they dropped both games.
Follow the Games: Both games this weekend can be seen on FloHockey.TV. A subscription is required.
Live stats can be found at https://bentleyfalcons.com/sports/mice/2022-23/schedule
Last Time Out: Bentley outshot Army West Point 33-22 last Friday in the series opener at Tate Rink, but goaltender Justin Evenson made each save to help the Black Knights to a 2-0 victory. After a scoreless first period, defenseman Anthony Firriolo scored a power play goal at 1:20 of the 2nd period.
Late in the 3rd period Bentley had a 6-on-4 advantage with a power play and extra-attacker on the ice, but Army's Ricky Lyle scored an empty net goal with 35 seconds left. Falcons goalie Nicholas Grabko stopped 20 of 21 shots.
On Saturday, Dylan Pitera gave Bentley a 1-0 lead at 10:48 of the 1st period with his 20th career goal. Army went ahead 2-1 with two goals in 40 seconds late in the 2nd period, but Bentley's Matt Gosiewski tied the game at the 19:36 mark of the 2nd period after he tipped in a shot from defenseman Nick Bochen.
Army though pulled away in the 3rd period with three goals in the final 11 minutes.
Grabko Shining: Over his last two starts, junior goalie Nicholas Grabko has a .962 save percentage. He made 31 saves in a 5-1 win at Air Force two weeks ago, and 20 saves against 21 shots at Army West Point last Friday.
Where They Rank: Dylan Pitera is tied for 10th in Atlantic Hockey with five goals and that leads the team.
Nick Bochen is 8th in Atlantic Hockey in points among defensemen with nine. His six assists rank 9th among defensemen in the conference.
Series History: This weekend will be the 83rd and 84th all-time meetings between Bentley and Sacred Heart. That makes the Pioneers the opponent Bentley has played most often. SHU leads the series 41-35-6.
The series began in the 1993-94 season. These teams have seen a lot of each other with 35 games over the last 10 seasons, including playoff series in 2016 and 2017.
This weekend will be the only two games of the season.
Up Next: Bentley takes on American International for a home and home series next week. The series begins on Thursday, Dec. 1 in Springfield and shifts to Waltham and Bentley Arena one day later.