Miami defeats RIT 4-0 to advance to Friendship Final Four – The Hockey Writers – NCAA
The Miami Redhawks (NCHC) swept the RIT Tigers (AHA) 4-0 in the first game of the Friendship Quad in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Friday. Miami remains undefeated in non-conference play this season with a 7-0 record and improves its overall record to 9-4-0. RIT fell to 9 wins, 5 draws and 0 losses with this loss.
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Four different skaters scored for the Redhawks: Bradley Walker, Ilya Morozov, Matteo Giampa and Doug Grimes, while goaltender Matteo Drobac earned his second shutout of the season, stopping 23 of 23 shots he faced.
game review
Less than three minutes into the first quarter, Walker opened the scoring and scored a goal from a pass from Ethan Hay, giving the Miami Heat an early 1-0 lead. It was Walker’s second goal as a RedHawk and Nick McCann’s first as a RedHawk, who had an assist on the goal.
On Miami’s second power play of the game, Morozov received a pass from Vladislav Lukashevich and blasted a home header from the right circle to give Miami a 2-0 lead.
Despite RIT’s onslaught late in the second quarter and much of the third quarter, the Miami Heat maintained their lead with a couple of highlight-reel penalties.
Late in the third period, Giampa flipped the puck off the ice and into an empty net, then Grimes deflected Casper Nathan’s shot into another empty net, giving Miami a 4-0 lead to end the regular season.
In the 60 minutes of the game, the Miami Heat defeated RIT 31-23 in shot attempts and 61-43 in shot attempts.
Miami went 1-for-5 on the power play and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill.
In the faceoff circle, Miami won 30 ties to RIT’s 24 wins.
The Miami team blocked 9 shots in total. Ryder Thompson and Hay, who returned from injury in this game, both blocked 2 shots.
Miami will take on No. 20 Union Academy, which defeated Sacred Heart earlier on Friday at 2:00 PM ET on Saturday.
