ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The No. 18/19 RIT men's hockey team kicks off the New Year with a pair of non-league home games this weekend, hosting Clarkson on Friday and St. Lawrence on Saturday. 
 
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• The Tigers split a pair of games at the Dartmouth Ledyard Classic last weekend, falling, 5-2, to No. 8/8 Maine in Friday's opener before taking down Lake Superior State, 4-2, in Saturday's consolation.
• Winners of 10 of its last 13 games, RIT completed the first semester with an 11-5-0 record for the second-winningest D1-era start – one win shy of last year's 12-4-0 start.
• RIT was ranked in the USCHO.com national poll for the seventh-consecutive week and was voted 18th for the second-straight poll.
• RIT entered the week 13th nationally in scoring offense (3.50 goals per game) and 19th in scoring defense (2.61 goals allowed/game) to rank 14th with a +0.89 scoring margin.
• Fifth-year defenseman Gianfranco Cassaro landed his second Atlantic Hockey Defensive Player of the Week honor of the season after garnering all-tournament honors in New Hampshire. He logged the primary assist on the opening goal and blocked three shots in the Lake State victory after adding an assist and blocking a shot on Friday.
• Junior forward Carter Wilkie scored his team-leading eighth goal of the season to knot Friday's game, 1-1, 1:34 into the second period, but the Black Bears later scored three times in a 3:39 stretch to build a 4-1 lead with 11:04 left in the second it would not relinquish. Wilkie also won 20-37 faceoffs during the contest.
• Tied, 1-1, with under 10 seconds left in the first period versus Lake Superior State, sophomore forward Tyler Mahan netted a short-handed goal with 7.5 seconds on the clock. The Lakers retied the game in the opening minutes of the third, before back-to-back goals by first-year forward Tyler Fukakusa and senior forward Cody Laskosky in a three-minute span pushed the Tigers back ahead for good with 9:09 left in regulation. 
• Junior goaltender Tommy Scarfone totaled 33 saves versus Maine for his 28th-career game with at least 30 saves, before notching 25 stops versus Lake State to move into a tie for second in D1-era program history (Jared DeMichiel '10) with his 41st-career victory. He is also 50 saves short of becoming only the third D1-era Tiger to compile 2,000 saves.
• Scarfone entered the week tied for seventh nationally with a .924 save percentage and tied for sixth with 11 victories. Wilkie entered the week ranked second nationally with 249 faceoff victories. He won his 1,000th-career faceoff in RIT's 5-2 victory at AIC (Dec. 9) and has won 1,052 draws to date.
• Laskosky is tied with Wilkie with 17 points this season, including a team-best 11 assists, while Cassaro is third with 14 points (7G/7A). Senior defenseman Aiden Hansen-Bukata is second with 10 assists.
• First-year forward Matthew Wilde is fourth for the Tigers with 12 points and is tied for second with seven goals. He notched a goal in both games in New Hampshire last weekend, scoring a power play tally on Friday along with the opening goal of Saturday's victory.
• Graduate student forward Elijah Gonsalves scored his 80th-career point with an assist in Saturday's win - tied for 22nd all-time (D1-era) with Kobe Walker '22.
• Sophomore forward Simon Isabelle is tied for second nationally with a pair of short-handed goals.
• Clarkson is 6-1-1 in its last eight outings, bouncing back from a 5-2 setback to Arizona State on Friday with a 5-4 OT win over No. 11 UMass on Saturday during the Adirondack Winter Festival in Lake Placid, N.Y. The Golden Knights also defeated the USA NTDP-U18, 3-2 OT (Dec. 9) during the run.
• St. Lawrence snapped a four-game slide with wins over visiting Dartmouth, 3-1, and Harvard, 2-0 (Dec. 1-2) a month ago, before most recently falling, 8-4, to the USA NTDP-U18 squad (Dec. 8) and defeating University of Ottawa, 5-2, in an exhibition last Saturday. The Saints defeated visiting RIT, 4-3 (Oct. 7), in both teams' season-opener.