Recap: Miami hockey sweeps series against Robert Morris, finishes with 3-2 road victory
“We needed to spend time with the puck. We needed to wear them down and not force things, and we thought that was by far the best job we did the entire weekend.”
The distance between Goggin Ice Center in Oxford, Ohio, and Robert Morris University Island Sports Center is 309 miles – approximately four hours and 45 minutes by bus. The distance between the two teams on Thursday night in Oxford was six goals.
Following a 7-1 win for the Miami University hockey team in their sold-out home opener at Steve “Coach” Cady Arena, the RedHawks spent the next day traveling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to prepare for an away bout against the Robert Morris University Colonials.
The home-and-home series finished on Saturday night, with the Colonials celebrating the start of their 2026-27 home slate and looking to get back on track following the substantial defeat.
Miami saw 10 different scorers grace the stat sheet on Thursday night.
Sophomore forwards Ilia Morozov and Kocha Delic both tallied two goals apiece. Delic also registered an assist. Sophomore forward David Deputy returned from injury and registered three assists, the second-highest total on the team behind senior forward Matteo Giampa, who finished the game with four.
Freshman forward Ryan Seelinger recorded his first collegiate goal and assist, while freshman defenseman Cal Huston scored his first goal as well. Freshman defenseman Branko Vukas tallied an assist, and freshman forward Matouš Kucharcík also earned an assist, bringing his point total to three in three games.
Sophomore forward Ethan Hay recorded his first goal of the season, and sophomore defenseman Michael Phelan finished with an assist, as well, to round out the group.
Junior goaltender Matteo Drobac entered the final game with a 2-1-0 record, 1.34 goals-against average and .933 save percentage. But on Saturday, Miami Head Coach Anthony Noreen decided to give his workhorse a break.
After starting 35 of Miami’s 36 games last season and all three games of the 2026-27 season, a new goaltender led the way for the RedHawks in Russian freshman and Calgary Flames draft pick, Yegor Yegorov.
Last season in Russia’s junior league, Yegorov started 38 games and posted a 2.97 goals-against average and .918 save percentage. On Saturday, Oct. 17, he started his first game in the United States.
The puck dropped on the second game of the home-and-home, and just as they did on Thursday, the RedHawks got off to a roaring start.
With 6:31 gone in the period, the Miami forecheck coerced a turnover from the Colonials. Vukas stepped up at the blueline and found Morozov, who used his big frame and excellent shot to wire one on net.
Robert Morris sophomore goaltender Charlie Schenkel was pulled from Thursday’s contest after allowing five goals by the 5-minute mark of the second period.
“One of the big messages from us all week was to make sure we’re at this goalie’s eyes and plant an anchor in front of him,” Noreen said. “(Associate Coach) Troy (Thibodeau) has been really on the forward group about that, and we have a guy standing right on top of the goalie, and Ilia trusts his shot and delivers one. It’s hard to make a save when you can’t see the puck coming, and I thought that’s what that resulted from.”
The Colonials, however, didn’t take long to bite back. With just over two minutes elapsed following Miami’s tally, Robert Morris scored on its own shot from the point. Junior defenseman and University of Vermont transfer, Charlie Kinsman, fired a shot from the point that was tipped in front by junior forward Patrick Johnson. The puck bounced by Yegorov and into the net to tie the game.
Both teams settled in from that point, but the tie would not last too much longer, as the RedHawks had three different chances on the power play in the first period, the second one of which was fruitful.
And who else but Morozov would do the special teams’ bidding once more, adding his third power-play goal of the weekend to his tally.
The four-on-three man-advantage allowed for plenty of space in the offensive zone, and the first power-play unit for Miami took charge. Just 20 seconds in, Kucharcík fired a pass to Giampa across the seam. After his shot found Schenkel, a rebound popped out to the stick of Morozov, giving him plenty of room to tap it in for the score and a 2-1 Miami lead.
The RedHawks took the one-goal lead into the locker room and played with it through most of the second period. The visitors had two opportunities to score on the power play between the 9:54 mark and 5:35 mark, but nothing came of either penalty.
Then, the RMU goal scorer, Johnson, took a tripping infraction, giving Miami its sixth power play of the night and another opportunity to add to the lead.
Just 11 seconds into the man advantage, it was Giampa, who had only registered assists through the weekend to this point, that slapped home a one-time feed from junior defenseman and Bentley transfer, David Helledy – his first point as a RedHawk. Delic added the secondary assist after winning a loose puck battle back to the point.
“Just (Giampa’s) compete level without the puck, to get his line and his power-play (unit) pucks back, second opportunities and third opportunities, what we loved about him as a group was how committed he was to his skating and stick detail and work without (the puck),” Noreen said.
“When your best players are your best people and hardest workers, it trickles down through the lineup. We felt like our top scorers really did a good job of working with and without the puck, specifically in that third period.”
The second period finished with Miami up 3-1 and looking to close out a series sweep. And thanks to a clinical third period where the RedHawks allowed 11 shots (not unlike Thursday, when they allowed 10, but most of them came from the outside areas) but also found 16 of their own, they came away with a hard-fought victory.
Following a kill of a 6-on-4 empty net power-play advantage, Miami allowed a goal to freshman defenseman Gavin Ewles with five seconds left. But once the puck was dropped at center ice, the clock ticked to zero and the RedHawks moved to 3-1-0 on the year with a 3-2 victory.
“Different games call for a different recipe,” Noreen said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of things that are non-negotiable for us. But what a mature team does over the course of five periods in a series is figure out what the recipe is against that team, and be able to learn, listen and apply it.
“We felt that, as far as what our recipe needed to be in that third period, we needed to make them defend. We needed to wear them down and not force things, and we thought that was by far the best job we did the entire weekend.”
Miami finished the game with three goals on 38 shots. They could have had more, had it not been for 20 blocks from Robert Morris. The RedHawks finished 2-for-9 on the power play, good for 22.2%, although a couple of those power plays didn’t finish due to taking a couple of penalties themselves.
The RedHawks also won almost 54% of the face-offs, with Morozov leading the way in the dot. He finished second-best behind Hay on Thursday.
Most importantly, the freshman goaltender Yegorov registered his first collegiate win. He finished the game with 20 saves on 22 shots and came up big down the stretch when the RedHawks needed him most.
“Just really proud of him,” Noreen said. “We knew they were going to push. And it was a game we needed. … It’s always special, no different than getting your first goal, getting your first college win, so really proud of him.”
The series sweep is a polar opposite result for the RedHawks compared to the last time they played Robert Morris. In 2024, Noreen's first year as the program's head coach, the Colonials marched into Oxford and took the first leg of the series 5-1 before emerging victorious in the second half of the series at home, 4-1.
Next, Miami begins a four-game homestand at 7:05 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, with a two-game weekend series against the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves.
