Air Force’s Frank Serratore is keeping up the emotional drumbeat because, well, he’s a hockey coach. It’s Page 1 of the manual. It’s in the DNA.

But he knows if his Falcons are going to build on last weekend’s sweep of Army – if they’re going to turn slump-stopping victories into slump-busting victories – there has to be something more.

On the road at streaking Mercyhurst tonight and Saturday night in key Atlantic Hockey Association games, it goes something like this:

“In essence, I like our chances if we don’t beat ourselves,” Serratore said Wednesday.

The Falcons diagnosed what went wrong in the three weeks after the holiday break, when they went 1-4-1. Last weekend, the fixing, the healing, began.

“I definitely feel it was a huge relief,” said sophomore forward Derrick Burnett, who scored three goals in the 5-1, 3-2 sweep of Army. “For us to take care of business after we’ve been struggling, that was just a huge emotional lift for the team.”

Serratore said Air Force’s forwards weren’t playing with enough energy.

“We saw a very vanilla team after Christmas, and we saw a very energetic team last weekend against West Point,” he said. “I’m very curious to see what we’re going to see this weekend.”

Message received.

“I don’t see the emotion going away any time soon,” said sophomore forward Blake Page, who had points in both games. “I think the team realizes it’s a whole lot more fun winning than it is losing, and if we play with emotion … we can beat anyone.”

Another thing, the coach said, was to stay away from “avoidable” penalties. Not every penalty is bad, but of the 21 goals the Falcons gave up during the slide, eight were power-play goals. Two of Army’s three goals came with the extra man.

“The strategic parts of our penalty kill, positionally, being strong – something that we’ve kind of been lax on – we’ve really been stepping up that part of our game in practice,” senior defenseman Greg Flynn said.

The last thing Serratore mentioned was taking care of the puck at the blue lines.

Offensively, it means not just getting out of their zone, but clean, crisp passing through the neutral zone and carrying speed into the offensive end.

“Neutral-zone turnovers, I think every team struggles with it,” Page said. “For us, especially, that needs to be a staple of our game. That’s something we have to do. Otherwise, bad things happen.”

Defensively, “we need to work on our discipline in not stepping up into bad situations,” Flynn said.

The second-place Falcons (17-6-1, 14-3-1 AHA) certainly don’t want to do that this weekend against the third-place Lakers (11-12-2, 9-6-2), who have won four straight games by a combined 22-3.

“Mercyhurst is a very opportunistic team,” Serratore said, “and they will score some goals. But I don’t think they will score enough goals to beat us if we don’t provide them with the opportunities.”

AIR FORCE AT MERCYHURST

Records: Air Force 17-6-1, 14-3-1 Atlantic Hockey Association; Mercyhurst 11-12-2, 9-6-2 AHA

Rankings: Air Force received votes in the USA Today/USA Hockey magazine poll. The Falcons are 19th in the USCHO/CBS College Sports poll. Mercyhurst is unranked.

Series: Air Force leads 5-4, each team with a 3-1 advantage on the road. The last meeting was the one neutral-site game, Air Force winning 5-4 in double overtime in last season’s AHA championship game in Rochester, N.Y.

Last week: Air Force swept Army, snapping a three-game losing streak. Mercyhurst swept Connecticut.

Scouting the opponent: Mercyhurst goalie Ryan Zapolski was last week’s AHA goalie of the week and has two shutouts in the last four games. He has a 2.02 GAA and .937 save percentage this season. The Lakers have won four straight, all at home, by a combined 22-3. They are the nation’s second-leading scoring team at 3.76 goals per game, two-tenths behind No. 1 Air Force. Steve Cameron leads the Lakers with 33 points (15 goals, 18 assists). But Brett Robinson had two goals and four assists last week. Jeff Terminesi and Cullen Eddy lead defenseman scoring with 11 points each.

Frank Serratore has guided Air Force hockey to the NCAA Tournament. Photo by KEVIN KRECK, SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE