The memory of Friday’s game is for Air Force hockey to bury, flush, incinerate and/or move on from. 

The Falcons (0-2-1) were dominated at Cadet Ice Arena by visiting St. Thomas which won in an 11-2 rout. 

The Tommies (2-2) had eight different goal scorers, had every one of their 12 forwards earn a point and forced Air Force to change goalies twice in the Falcons’ worst loss since 2002 when they gave up 12 against the Miami of Ohio RedHawks. 

“You can’t really dissect that. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said postgame. “This is one of those games that we just got to, we got to flush it and we gotta come back tomorrow …basically it’s going to be a mental regroup.” 

The seasoned Air Force coach in his 29th season at the helm of the program has often tried to spin the positives from a loss, but there wasn’t much that went right for the Falcons on Friday. Instead, Serratore issued a keen warning to his team, which held Denver, the fifth-ranked team in the country, scoreless for over 50 minutes just seven days ago. Either get up for every game or get run over. 

“Last weekend for the most part against Denver we played with a lot of enthusiasm, we played with a lot of vigor, a lot of spunk, a lot of energy and we need to have that on our side of the ledger and tonight it wasn’t,” he said. “College hockey is better by a country mile than it’s ever been and like I said the one thing we need to get on our side of the ledger is the compete … and when we don’t, it ain’t going to be pretty.”

There was no shortage of differences between how the Falcons played a week ago and Friday. In Air Force’s season-opening tie against Denver, Falcons junior goaltender Carter Clafton set an Atlantic Hockey America record and a program conference-era best with 58 saves. On Friday, his night was over before the first period ended. 

Tommies right wing Casy Laylin scored 80 seconds into the game and left wing Alex Gaffney scored a power-play goal, the first the Falcons have allowed this season, at 11:46. St. Thomas netted the game-winning goal at 16:42 of the first period courtesy of Tommies right wing Josh Giuliani. Giulian’s score was the first of three in a minute for the visitors. St. Thomas defenseman Nick Williams scored at 17:04 to end Clafton’s night and then centerman Jake Braccini added a tally 36 seconds later. 

The game was effectively over from that moment, but the visitors added another four goals in the second period and a pair of scores in the final frame. 

Falcons sophomore netminder Toby Hopp replaced Clafton in the first but was replaced by junior Domink Wasik at the start of the third period. Clafton finished with five saves, Hopp had 13 and Wasik made nine. St. Thomas outshot Air Force 38-31. 

The Falcons staved off a shutout with a shorthanded goal from sophomore center Michael Kadlecik at 8:41 of the third period, his first-career goal for the Falcons. Senior defenseman and captain Chris Hedden maneuvered past a defender and scored his first goal of the season at 16:13.

Air Force will look to reset mentally and split the series against the Tommies on Saturday. Puck drop is at 8 p.m.