The last time the Golden Rams' men's DI hockey team won two consecutive road games against teams in their league was Jan. 17-18, 2009 when they beat Lehigh and Villanova.
The last time they achieved a shutout was the first game of that same season, a 10-0 rout of Lehigh.
The last time until this past weekend that is.
In the middle games of a six game road trip, the Golden Rams rolled over Robert Morris University with a 5-3 win on Friday and a 5-0 win on Saturday. These were the first games West Chester played against Robert Morris since eliminating them from the ACHA playoffs last season.
Things looked bleak for the Golden Rams early in the game on Friday as they faced a 3-0 deficit halfway through regulation time.
But being down seemed to light a fire under WCU, as they quickly rallied back in the second half of the game.
"We played awful in the first period and a half, but after the third goal, we turned it on and scored five unanswered goals," head coach Shawn Dorsey said.
Steve Meade (2), and Chris Doyle scored the first three goals for the Golden Rams. These two forwards are continuing their torrid pace this season. Meade, who is first on the team in scoring this year, is on pace to come close to the 30 goal plateau, which would blow away his previous high mark of 18 goals. Doyle's goal was his 13th of the season, and he stands only behind Meade for the team lead in points.
West Chester took their first lead of the contest in the third period when a penalty kill turned into a shorthanded, go-ahead goal.
Jimmy McKee, the shot blocking specialist, found a loose puck and managed to tip it out of the reach of the RMU defenseman. McKee gave chase and turned it into a shorthanded 2-1 breakaway. The lone defenseman bit on McKee's fake and, when he went down, McKee buried the puck top shelf on the glove side.
"The first thing that comes to mind on a penalty kill is to block shots and clear the puck. But if an opportunity presents itself, I'll try my hardest to take full advantage of it," McKee said.
It was McKee's first goal of the season, and he hopes it will be a start of more to come.
"Now, after getting the monkey off my back, I hope that I can start to contribute more on the goal scoring side of the game," McKee said.
Brian Ruskowski went on to score the final goal, an empty netter that gave WCU the 5-3 victory.
Although WCU won, they would have liked to have played well for the entire game.
"It is great to get another come-back win. It shows how we have heart," McKee said. "But that being said, I would like for us to start being the team that is up first and have the opponent chase us."
Saturday's game was a much cleaner game all around.
The Rams enjoyed a huge night from their Chris Gentile- Tim Higgins- Tim Margadonna line, as they accounted for three of the five WCU goals. Gentile scored two, his 10th and 11th on the season, and Higgins also added a goal.
Meade scored yet another goal, giving him 15 goals about halfway through the season, and Ruskowski added his second goal in as many games.
The defense limited RMU's opportunities and between the pipes, Japchen was solid once again as they teamed up for the shutout.
"The shutout is proof that we as a team played a full 60 minutes from front to back. We executed our game tonight the way we should have," Japchen said.
West Chester sits at 14-5 on the season, and will face Robert Morris twice at home following two games in Rhode Island beginning Jan. 6.
Dorsey does not want to take his foot off the pedal.
"Our goal is to get back to nationals, and we have a lot of work to do. We've had a good start, but we need to keep improving," Dorsey said.
Seeing as the Rams have 12 regular season games left, and have already eclipsed last season's win total, they are certainly on the right track to make that goal a reality.
Kenny Ayres is a second-year student majoring in communication studies. He can be reached at KA739433@wcupa.edu.
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