Air Force’s hockey team will need to make the most of any little edge Friday and Saturday at Rochester Institute of Technology if the Falcons are to win the Atlantic Hockey Association regular-season title.

A good place to start would be to connect the “dots.”

The Falcons, who have lost more faceoffs than they have won in four of six games this month, face a Tigers team statistically even weaker on the draw.

“We haven’t competed well on the dot as of late,” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said Wednesday.

Air Force (22-8-2, 19-5-2 AHA) has won 51.7 percent of its faceoffs this season. That probably is a little low for a team with the Falcons’ record. But they won just 35.1 percent in last week’s sweep of Holy Cross and only 44.2 percent this month.

“It’s a huge issue. It affects everything,” Serratore said. “It especially affects special teams.”

The first principle of offense is possession. And if the Falcons can take advantage of an RIT team (20-10-2, 19-5-2) that has won just 48.1 percent of its faceoffs this season – especially in what figures to be tightly played games – they might just win their first regular-season title.

“This weekend, we’re playing for all the marbles,” said senior Brent Olson, one of the Falcons’ top faceoff men, “so every little extra possession we can get can potentially make or break what will happen.”

Junior Jeff Hajner (58 percent), Olson (57.5) and sophomore linemate Jacques Lamoureux (54.5) are Air Force’s go-to guys on faceoffs.

In the December split at Air Force (Falcons won 2-0 before falling 3-2 in overtime), all three were successful. Lamoureux batted .750, Olson .690 and Hajner .602. Lamoureux had three points in the series, Olson two and Hajner one.

Overall, Air Force won 84 of 153 faceoffs (54.9 percent) against RIT in December.

“At this point of the season, people realize how important faceoffs are,” Hajner said.

There are lots of different ways to win faceoffs. Obviously, being quicker with the hands and stick is one. But you can win them with the body and skate, or by controlling your opponent and getting help from wingers jumping into the circle.

“That (closing wingers) is one of the things we don’t do well as a team,” Hajner said. “It’s not that our wingers don’t do it, it’s that we haven’t worked on it. Now it’s an emphasis item.”

The Tigers, by contrast, went 61-for-148 (41.2 percent) in a sweep at Holy Cross two weeks ago. Last week, after going 34-for-56 in a victory at Army, they went just 25-for-59 in a tie that allowed Air Force to pull even in the standings.

“It comes down the centers have to be in there whacking and hacking,” Hajner said.

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