The RMU ACHA D-I hockey team enter this weekend’s series with a record of 12-5, winning four of its last six games, including two wins at a showcase hosted by Robert Morris University of Illinois.

The team took to the ice Saturday, after a heartbreaking 9-0 loss Friday against the University of Buffalo, in hopes of breaking even this weekend against the Canisius College Griffins.

“The guys all know what they have to do and what their jobs are and they weren’t any prouder of themselves than I was about their performance last night,” said head Coach Michael Joseph. “So they just decided we were going to play hockey tonight, we played significantly better then what we did last night”.

Joseph made several line changes entering the contest and even a slight change with his starting goalies. The team would start the game with sophomores Lucas Chiala, Andrew Lister and Zach Michels up front, with Junior Eric Barger and sophomore Josh Clearly on defense, with senior Jeff Siwik in the cage for the Colonials, with sophomore Alex Blum as back up.

Both teams were unable to capitalize on five minute penalties that came in the opening period. RMU saw the first after Canisius’  Dimitrios Gogos laid a hit on Eric Attanucci early in the period. Gogos’ hit earned him a game misconduct and took Attanucci out of the game for the night.

Shortly after, the Colonials would lose Stephen Thomas for the evening due to a hit behind, which as a result earned him a game misconduct. Both teams would exit the period losing players and keeping the game scoreless.

Starting the second period the Colonials would lose Patrick Tanski to illness, but they were able to light the lamp early with a goal from Wes Heinle at 1:06. Shortly after, James Joyce would score with the help of Cody Brightbill and Joe Boyer at 15:52. Captain Camden Zappi would record the team’s third tally of the period with an extra point going to both Heinle and Joyce.

The team wouldn’t make it out of the period before giving up a goal to the Griffins’ Chad Loughran, putting the Colonials up 3-1 after two.

With the help of Max Rickard, Chiala would open up the third scoring at 2:45, before Siwik would give up the second goal of the night. The rest of the night would belong to RMU. Heinle came up with his second goal of the night halfway through the period. With a little less than five minutes to go Michels would score his fourth of the season. Goal number seven would come from Zappi with a minute and a half to goal.

Heinle, Joyce, and Zappi would all close out the night with three point a piece, but the star of the game when to goaltender Siwik, who came out of the locker room with the colonial hat on.

“The hat is an after game tradition, it’s given to the player of the game,” Siwik commented. “If you’re given the award you have to wear it the rest of the night.”