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Anthony Yu skates against RMU (Provided by Air Force Athletics)

Anthony Yu skates against RMU (Provided by Air Force Athletics)
There was no way the Air Force Falcons were going to miss the mark on their mulligan. 
In the second-longest game in Air Force hockey history, freshman winger Anthony Yu scored a power-play goal at 13:30 of double overtime to lift the Falcons to a 4-3 victory over visiting Robert Morris University in the opening round of the Atlantic Hockey America playoffs. 
Following a faceoff win from senior captain Clayton Cosentino, the puck slid back to junior defensemen Chris Hedden who sent it toward the goal. It bounced off the stick of an RMU defender right to Yu at the crease.
“I just had an empty netn kind ofn so I just buried it,” Yu said. 
Following the win, the team’s seniors took a lap around the rink while Falcons coach Frank Serratore thanked the fans. It was redemption for the Class of ’25, following a disappointing senior night in mid-February, which saw the Falcons lose a shootout to rival Army after Air Force blew a three-goal lead in the third period. 
Saturday’s game was, in all likelihood, the Falcons’ final home contest of the season. Prior to the game, Cosentino’s fellow senior and captain Austin Schwartz described it as a Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Final. To little surprise Cosentino, the nation’s faceoff win leader, described in much the same way. 
“It was the coolest game I’ve probably been a part of in a long time,” he said. “You dream of do or die games … like a Game 7 playoffs. For it go into double overtime it’s like as a kid, you’re in your backyard and you’re dreaming of scoring that goal to win. And to see ‘Yuey’ come out there and he get the game-winner as a freshman for us like that is so cool to even watch.”  
The seniors and the Falcons owe much to their freshmen teammates who combined for seven of the 11 points (goals and assists) Air Force scored on Saturday. 
Robert Morris first-line winger Tanner Klimpke netted the first goal of the game at 6:16 of the first period but the Falcons all-freshman third line of Nick Sajevice, Sam Stitz and Will Dawson answered just over five minutes later. 

Sajevic, a center, poked the puck into the net in scrum at the crease at 11:27. Stitz earned the assist.
The Falcons’ momentum would be short-lived. Robert Morris regained the lead at 13:57 of the period on the power play after Falcons junior center Mason McCormick was sent to the box for charging. Colonial winger Michael Felsing scored. 
In the middle frame, the Falcons earned an equalizer on a five-minute major assessed to RMU center Mitch Deelstra. Stitz found Cosentino at the crease at 6:08. 
Stitz gave his team the lead at 4:57 of the third period in a scrum at the goal. Dawson and rookie defenseman Ren Morque earned the assists. Stitz has 10 points on six goals and four assists in his last seven games. Saturday marked his second three-point evening in that span. 
“My class, I love them all. All great guys on and off the ice. So it’s just good to see everyone succeeding on the ice. I just have a lot of love for them,” Yu said of his fellow rookies. 
Klimpke scored his second goal of the evening at 10:24 of the third period to tie the game for the visitors. 
The contest was just the third game in Falcons’ history to reach double overtime. It was continuation of Air Force’s regular-season series last week in which the Falcons beat the Colonials in a shootout in Pittsburgh after neither team scored in the 3-on-3 overtime period. 
Falcons senior goaltender Guy Blessing finished with 34 saves and Air Force outshot Robert Morris 54-37. 
Air Force, the seventh seeded in the tournament will travel to second-seeded Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. to play a full series in the AHA quarterfinals.  
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