AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Air Force maintained an impossible pace set Friday night. Even when extra time was tacked on.
Now, the baby-faced Falcons just have to figure out how to maintain this impossible standard throughout the season.
Facing No. 5 Denver in the 2015-16 opener for both teams at Cadet Ice Arena, Air Force and its roster — stocked with 27 freshmen and sophomores — pestered, swarmed and generally annoyed their way to a 5-4 upset victory in overtime.
Johnny Hrabovsky banged home the game-winner off goaltender Tanner Jaillet’s stick, sending the sellout crowd of 2,542 into a frenzy.
This was a series the Pioneers had dominated 34-3-1 entering Friday, having lost just once since 1980.
But history meant very little to this Falcons squad that jumped ahead 1-0, then 2-1 in the first period, then rallied after DU had seemingly taken over in the second period to briefly hold its lone lead.
And with a team this young, why would history matter?
Air Force is so green that five of its freshmen found the score sheet, including a two-goal effort from Kyle Haak in his collegiate debut. Phil Boje, Evan Freno, Matt Koch and Matt Serratore notching assists. Serratore is the nephew of Air Force coach Frank Serratore.
Denver led only once, at 3-2 in the second period, but Air Force overcame that lone deficit.
The Pioneers had two goals from Quentin Shore and others from Emil Romig and Danton Heinen.
The crazy thing was the pace. The Falcons knew their only chance in this game was to avoid an early deficit, and that was achieved. Then, when they found a late goal in the second to set up a tied game going into the third period, they found a second wind and carried it to an unlikely victory, the program’s seventh over a top-five program in nine years.
