Last night at Houston Fieldhouse the RPI Engineers emerged with a 3-1 victory
in the first game of their ECAC Quarterfinal match-up with Union.  The game
had all the elements for a Union victory: tight forechecking, solid
goaltending, even bad officiating.  In fact Union won two of the three
periods of play, but they didn't win the most important element--the score.
 
Since it's a Union contest, it's not hard to write-up.  Offensive forays for
either team are necessarily few and far between.  RPI, cognizant of the kind
of game they were in for, flew out of the starting gate in an effort to score
a goal or two before the Dutchman could get their grinding defense operating.
 Coach Dan Fridgen had come up with a plan that would empahsize hitting and
short passes as a means to cut down on Union counterattacks, and in the first
period the strategy succeeded.  After a series of penalties to the #27's,
RPI's Murphy and Union's Kimble, Alain St. Hilaire gains control of the puck
at the blue line, and sends a nice little pass to defenseman George Murray,
uncharacterisically pinching in down low.  Murray's inelegant shot is stopped
by Union's Koenig, but Eric Healy skates in to bury the rebound into the open
corner of the net.  RPI takes the initial lead, 1-0, at 10:56.
 
Shortly thereafter the most controversial play of the night takes place.  At
12:40 a Union shot hits the pipe, and, according to my notes, misses the net
by maybe a centimeter or so.  The goal judge doesn't see the play as a goal,
nor does head referee Taylor.  But later on the Channel 13 news the video
replay seems to show the puck hitting net.  After hitting the pipe the puck
riccochets straight back out, which usually means no goal.  Also no one in
the Fiehldhouse complained
about the call, which also makes the call curious.  After the game
sportcaster Roger Wyland saw fit to base his comments to Dan Fridgen solely
about the controversial non-goal, to which Fridge shrugged that's just the
bounces of the game.
 
The play proves doubly significant as RPI will score the game winner shortly
thereafter.  At 16:01 Dan Riva fights to get the puck down the right wing,
and slides the puck across to an unattended Pete Gardiner.  Gardiner roofs
the puck to give RPI the 2-1 lead, with Aldous also receiving as assist.
 
The second period sees play begin to return to the Union script: no scoring,
few shots, lots of checking, great goaltending.  Freshman Joel Laing in
particular justifies Fridgen's decision to give him the starting nod over
Scott Prekaski, thereby breaking up the rotation, as his play in the second
and third period will win the game for RPI.
 
And the third--all Union, all the time, with RPI hanging on by their shoe
laces.  After a quiet initial four minutes, the Dutchman go into gear and
aided by some questionable calls from referee Taylor, take control of the
game.  The officiating IMO was poor last night, not only because of the
lopsided number of penalties against the Engineers through the first two
periods, penalties that came from Union dives and clean Engineer checks, but
also the make-ups in the third, where RPI got away with a couple of punches
and elbows against the boards.  At one point RPI's Brian Tapper slugs a Union
player against the boards but play continues.
 
At 6:19 Union manages to get on the board as Will picks the corner clean on
Laing's glove side, Saterland and Antoine receiving assists.  Naturally that
throws the Union forecheckers into a frenzy, and the rest of the game will be
played in the Engineer end.  This unfortunately seems to be the pattern of
the last few weeks as the Engineer third period has become increasingly
shaky.  RPI chases the puck around its zone, and endures the slugfest from
the Union attack. Union fails to capitalize however as their dearth of
finishers doesn't provide enough firepower to solve Laing.  Most of the Union
shots come from difficult angles, which Laing easily chokes off, or are of
the unscreened variety.
 
After Koenig is pulled, Eric Healy scores an empty net goal, at 19:07 to ice
the game.  Tapper and St. Hilaire receive gift assists, and the Engineers go
home with their first tight victory of the year.
 
It should be more of the same tonight.  RPI must expect that the Dutchman
will play the second game like they did the third period, and it won't be a
pretty contest.  Hopefully the non-existent Engineer power play will show a
little more life.  Friday night's contest showed the Engineer power play
reach new lows of futility, often not even garnering a shot in the few
opportunities offered.   The Engineers will have to discover some way to get
more shots on Koenig if they want to move on to Lake Placid.
***************************************************************
Brian Morris                                       RPI Engineers--Big and
Nasty
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