DIVE RIGHT IN
It's straight into the deep end for the Sacred Heart University men's ice hockey team this weekend. The Pioneers open their 2023-24 Atlantic Hockey campaign with a road trip to visit the preseason league favorite, Rochester Institute of Technology. Though it is widely considered one of the toughest road trips in the league, SHU has a favorable all-time record (9-7-0) at the Gene Polisseni Center, though the Pios are just 1-5-0 in their last six contests at RIT. Sacred Heart is 9-10-1 in 20 all-time Atlantic Hockey openers. Both games are available live on FloSports.

LAST WEEKEND
SHU opened the season at home, but dropped a pair of games to Colgate, 3-2 and 6-1. Kevin Lombardi scored in both games and now has a three-game goal streak (3-0-3) dating to the end of last season. TJ Walsh (1-1-2) and Mark Cheremeta (0-2-2) also both had two-point weekends while making their Pioneer debuts. Chase Clark stopped 41 of 44 shots in Friday's game, which was his first collegiate start. Friday night's crowd of 4165 marked the eighth sellout in the first 12 games the Pios have played at Martire Family Arena. Saturday's game was the 1000th all-time in program history (390-518-92).

SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
RIT has split a pair of non-conference games to open the campaign, but the Tigers made some noise in their home opener and homecoming contest last Saturday, with a 3-0 blanking of Notre Dame. Cody Laskosky and Carter Wilkie both had 1-1-2 in the victory, while Tommy Scarfone turned aside all 36 shots on his goal. Wilkie has 2-1-3 through the first two games and Scarfone has stopped 66 of the 70 shots he has faced.

PREVIOUSLY AGAINST RIT
The Pios and Tigers met just twice last year, as SHU trekked out to Rochester for a weekend series in mid-November. RIT posted 3-1 victories in both games. Carter Wilkie (2-3-5) and Gianfranco Cassaro (2-1-3) led the way for the Tigers, while Kevin Lombardi has an assist in each game for SHU. Tommy Scarfone stopped 37 of 38 shots on Friday night for RIT.

ALL-TIME AGAINST THE RAIDERS
SHU and RIT have met 51 times in an all-time series which dates to 2005, and have been conference mates in Atlantic Hockey since the 2006-07 season. The Pios have a 10-16-1 record in road games against RIT, but do have the aforementioned 9-7-0 advantage in 16 games at the Polisseni Center. The Tigers have won six of the last seven meetings between the two, following a SHU run of 10-5-0 from January of 2017 through November of 2019.

UP NEXT
The Pioneers return home next weekend, for a pair of Atlantic Hockey contests against Niagara, in what will be a rematch of last season's AHA quarterfinal series. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 27, and 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28, at Martire Family Arena in Fairfield. Friday night will be SHU's annual Hockey Fights Cancer game. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.