(Photo courtesy: Kelsie Redburn/RIT Sports Information)
ROCHESTER, N.Y., – By the third period on Saturday night, a boisterous crowd inside the Gene Polisseni Center had been whipped into a frenzy.
Twenty-four hours earlier, the Rochester Institute of Technology faithful had been kept quiet as their team got dominated 6-1 by No. 16 Arizona State. But a night later, the building was filled with noise with just over six minutes to go, thanks to a series of after-the-whistle melees, an RIT penalty-shot goal moments earlier, and a tied 2-2 score.
One crack of Gvido Jansons’ stick silenced the place again.
The ASU defenseman rifled a one-timer off a faceoff with 6:18 to play, beating Tigers goalie Logan Drackett low and on the blocker side with a blast from the point.
“Nothing special,” the sophomore said postgame of his first goal of the season. “[Freshman center Demetrios Koumontzis] won the draw and I shot it.”
Though perhaps unspectacular in nature, Jansons tally was the eventual game-winner in a 4-2 victory over RIT (12-11-3) that handed the Sun Devils (19-10-1) a critical late-season series sweep in upstate New York this weekend as it jockeys for position on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
“Our guys stuck with it through a ton of adversity,” coach Greg Powers said postgame. “Great crowd, great environment. Got a big win.”
Away games had been unkind to ASU in recent weeks. Entering this weekend, the Sun Devils had lost three of four, all on the road, during trips to Cornell and Boston University. The skid – only ASU’s second four-game stretch below .500 all season – had chomped into their margin of error for a postseason berth.
This weekend’s pair of games in Rochester weren’t quite must-wins … but they were close.
“To come out of this place with a sweep is huge,” sophomore forward Johnny Walker said.
Walker opened the scoring on Saturday, tallying his NCAA-leading 22nd goal of the year after deking around an RIT defenseman in front of the net and sliding the puck past an out-of-position Drackett.
But unlike Friday, when the Sun Devils pulled away from the Tigers early en route to the five-goal win, RIT came back. In the final minute of the first, Tigers defenseman Darren Brady beat ASU junior goalie Joey Daccord high on the glove side to tie the score at 1-1.
After the Sun Devils regained the lead in the second on a goal from freshman forward Demetrios Koumontzis – whose centering feed from the corner ricocheted of an RIT player and into the net – RIT drew level again in the third.
During an ASU penalty kill, Sun Devils sophomore defenseman Jacob Wilson got knocked down in front of his own net and fell on a loose puck. Officials ruled Wilson’s body covered the puck in the crease – Powers disagreed, saying postgame, “we didn’t think he was in the crease when he made contact with it,” – and, by rule, awarded a penalty shot to RIT.
By that point, Daccord – who made 26 saves on the night – had already stopped a pair of live-action breakaways. But Tigers sophomore forward Jake Hamacher got him to bite with a stickhandle before sending a backhander into the net to tie things up and bring the crowd to life with 9:46 remaining.
RIT’s momentum, however, was short-lived.
Jansons buried his slap shot less than three minutes later, helping the Sun Devils improve to 9-5-1 in one- or two-goal games and 12-1-0 in games which they led entering the third.
“We kept saying, ‘That ain’t going to beat us. That penalty shot isn’t going to beat us,’” Powers said. “We stuck with it.”
Video of Gvido Jansons' go-ahead goal for @SunDevilHockey (h/t: @R_Smith985) pic.twitter.com/kJwW4bYkds
— Jack Harris (@ByJackHarris) February 3, 2019
After beginning the weekend ranked 12th in the PairWise standings – the metric used to select NCAA Tournament at-large bids – the Sun Devils finished the night at No. 9. A top-10 finish in the ranking would guarantee them a spot in the NCAA Tournament. Anything lower than that, and ASU will have to wait a while to find out its fate.
Such is the life for the NCAA’s lone independent Division I program. Though selection Sunday is still more than six weeks away, ASU has just four games left in its regular season – a pair of home contests against American International in two weeks and one final road trip to Minnesota the first weekend of March.
With no conference tournament to play, ASU won’t have a chance to earn an automatic bid into the postseason. Instead, it has to beef up its resume as much as possible in what season it has left. The Sun Devils could hardly afford to drop games to RIT, ranked a middling 36th in the PairWise now.
Thanks to the sweep, ASU’s first on the road since a two-win weekend at Princeton in early December, the Sun Devils kept their NCAA Tournament dreams well-alive, if not likely, for at least a little while longer.
“It speaks volume to our guys’ character and the backbone we have in that room,” Powers said. “We’re really happy with where we are at.”
