RPI halts losing streak

Engineers win for the first time in nine games on Marrello’s OT goal

It had been 41 days between home games for the RPI hockey team and though the Engineers made their fans wait just more than 59 minutes of game action for something to holler and scream about, the wait was worth it for the 3,164 in Houston Field House.

Staring at the harsh reality of a possible 1-0 loss to Army West Point late in the game, RPI tied the score with 20.5 seconds left in regulation before junior Jake Marrello won the game at 1:16 of overtime, giving RPI a 2-1 win Saturday, ending the team’s eight-game losing streak.

Marrello, from Slingerlands and a former Albany Academy player, took a pass from Mike Gornall and skated across the Black Knights’ zone, firing the puck on net as the Army defenders focused on picking up Gornall, who was coming up the ice.

“It started in the ‘D’ zone. I got a great chip from Gorny, got the puck and he (Gornall) drew two men to him,” Marrello said. “I got a step and just got the shot off. There was room there, (Army goalie Jared Dempsey) was cheating a little bit there.”

The win came a day after RPI (5-14, 3-6 ECAC) had been beaten 3-2 in overtime at Harvard, a nice reversal of fortunes for the team with two overtime losses in the past eight days.

“Tonight was a different type of difficult for our guys. I thought Army played well, their goalie played well. There wasn’t a lot of free ice,” RPI coach Dave Smith said. “The margin of difference across college hockey is very, very small. Sometimes you play well and lose. Sometimes you play poorly and win. We haven’t found those winning games yet. I like our growth. A win is a re-

ward, a validation that we are doing the right things.”

Army (8-11-1, 7-6-1) took a 1-0 lead 15:11 into the second period on Brendan Soucie’s goal and carried the advantage deep into the third period thanks to the play of Dempsey, who came up big when RPI threatened.

Dempsey denied Chase Zieky’s attempt from the slot with 6:37 left in regulation and then stuffed Brady Wiffen’s bid with RPI on a power play with 4:57 left in the third.

The Engineers kept up the urgency in the offensive zone, pulled goaltender Linden Marshall (27 saves) with just more than two minutes left to play for

an extra attacker and kept the pressure on Dempsey until finally coming up with the tying goal.

With RPI players hovering around the net, Jacob Hayhurst fired a shot on net that hit an Army defender and bounced to Wiffen, who had room in the slot and put the puck into the back of the net with 20.5 seconds left to force overtime.

“There was a loose puck out front. Hayhurst gloved the puck, put it down and tried to shoot it on net,” Wiffen said. “It hit a body, came right to my stick and I had an open net.”

Spurred on by Wiffen’s goal, Smith said little to his team in the timeout prior to overtime.

“We left it up to the players,” Smith said. “When Hazy (Hayhurst) saw me talking to (assistant coach) Chuck (Weber) about nothing that mattered to them, I heard him talking to the guys and they started to get a little pumped up.”

Sean Martin, a local freelance writer, is a frequent contributor to the Times Union