Air Force learned a lesson Sunday night. Few college hockey teams can overcome their own mistakes against a sound defensive opponent.

But in typical fashion, the Falcons showed resilience, rallying with an extra-attacker goal by Parker Brown to force overtime in an eventual 4-3 nonconference loss to visiting Lindenwood.

The Lions’ David Gagnon scored three minutes into the extra frame, silencing a raucous Cadet Ice Arena crowd of 1,339 that had jumped for joy about five minutes earlier when a wide-open Brown scored with one second left in regulation.

“We persevered,” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said. “We knew if we won the third period there was a good chance we would win the game. It took us 19 minutes and 59 seconds to do it, but we did win that period. We just got caught on the ice in overtime and they got it done.”

Brown’s goal, off Chris Hedden’s second assist of the game, capped a furious Falcons rally that started when goalie Guy Blessing (19 saves) was pulled with 2:52 left in the third. The ice tilted in Air Force’s favor with Lions goalie Trent Burnham making nine of his 32 saves down the stretch along with eight blocked shots (18 total) by the 1-1 Lions.

It was the reverse of the second period when Lindenwood controlled play by clogging up the middle of the ice and taking advantage of unforced errors by Air Force (1-1), including during an early five-minute power play.

“No one steps on the ice from the golf course and plays a perfect game,” Serratore said. “We need to be better at the things we can control. We need to establish a consistent forecheck. We need to make the (defenseman to defenseman) pass instead of a cross-ice attempt through a bunch of players.”

Lindenwood took advantage of blown defensive assignments to score twice in less than four minutes for a 3-1 lead in the second.

The Falcons would respond with a goal by Austin Schwartz, his third this season, with 3:17 left to cut the deficit to 3-2 and set the stage for the dramatic ending.

The Air Force power play opened the scoring after going 0 for 2 in Saturday’s season-opening 4-1 win. It came off a first-period pass into the slot by Chris Hedden to a streaking Clayton Consentino, who collected the airborne puck, switched to his backhand and lifted the puck past Burnham in one smooth motion as he skated across the goal face.

It was one of the few times the Falcons would have much space at the Lions’ net front, even during the unsuccessful five-minute man advantage in the second period.

“That was something we talked about earlier (Sunday) was that they like to clog up the middle and try to get pucks behind them,” Schwartz said. “Especially here, at altitude, visitors like to take a few logs off the fire and pack it in. We need to learn from this and play our style of hockey, hard, fast and physical (against Michigan State Thursday).”

Air Force Academy’s Owen Baumgartner (6) works to avoid Lindenwood’s Kieran Ruscheinski (3) on a break Saturday during their contest at Cadet Ice Arena.

Courtesy of Air Force Athletics