Veteran sportswriter, member of the WDVE Morning Show and hockey aficionado Mike Prisuta has been covering the Pittsburgh sports scene for over 20 years. He has covered Pittsburgh sports as a reporter for the Beaver County Timesand as a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and has had his pulse on the happenings of each of the professional organizations and college programs in the area. A graduate of Michigan State University, Prisuta got his start in the profession covering the Spartan hockey program and possesses knowledge of the college hockey world unmatched in the region.

Throughout the 2011-12 season, Prisuta will serve up weekly stories surrounding Colonial hockey as well as the latest notes and news around college hockey.

Prisuta on Pucks: Improved Play Seen in Split

The Colonials earned a split but deserved better, in head coach Derek Schooley's estimation, in trading 2-0 decisions with American International.

RMU will get more of what it's after, Schooley maintained, if it can continue to consistently manufacture what was put on display last weekend at the Island Sports Center.

“If we play like we played we're going to get results more often than not,” Schooley said.

The Colonials out-shot AIC 44-27 in Friday night's 2-0 victory and 33-18 in Saturday night's 2-0 loss, a game that played out in front of a record crowd of 1,346.

“We played a pretty complete game on Friday,” Schooley said. “Saturday got frustrating because we couldn't put the puck in the net.”

RMU netting two goals in the two games wasn't attributable to a lack of opportunities. Sophomore forward Colin South had 14 of RMU's shots and senior forward Ron Cramer had 11.

“I thought we did a lot of things well,” Schooley said. “We only gave up 11 scoring opportunities on the weekend and five were on the power play."

“I thought we played very well. It's just unfortunate we weren't rewarded for our hard work and our effort and our shots.”

The split left RMU at 3-6-0 overall and 1-2-0 in the Atlantic Hockey Association heading into this weekend's lone game at Mercyhurst (4-4-0, 3-0-0).

The Colonials beat the Lakers, 2-1, on Oct. 8 at the Mutual of Omaha Stampede in Omaha, Neb., a game that didn't count in the AHA standings.

But Mercyhurst will come in having won four straight games, including a 5-4 triumph at Cornell (the recipient of six votes in the “others receiving votes” portion of this week's USCHO.com Top 20), following an 0-4 start.

That being the case Schooley had a plan in place heading into the Mercyhurst rematch, the first of three AHA games between the teams.

“We're going to work on shooting, work on hitting the net and work on going to the net,” Schooley said. “We're going to work on individual skills. We're going to put a lot of extra work into shooting and scoring to get the guys some confidence."

“The identity of our team is it's going to be a tight-checking, low-scoring game. We gotta get used to grinding out shots and grinding out goals.”

One additional goal at the right time could be all that's required.

Somebody's goaltender has been pulled in nine of Robert Morris' 10 games this season. The only exception is a 6-2 loss on Oct. 29 at Michigan State (Schooley was getting ready to pull Brooks Ostergard but the Spartans scored at 16:27 of the third period and again at 18:01 to break open a two-goal game).

“We want to play at a high tempo with a good forecheck and be a good defensive team, but every team is going to be different,” Schooley said. “Last year we were fairly high scoring with Nathan Longpre and Denny Urban and Chris Kushneriuk. They're not here this year and we have to deal with what we have."

“Not everybody has clicked yet. If we get everybody clicking we'll be fine.”