SETTING THE SCENE: The American International College men's ice hockey squad will travel to Erie, PA. to take on the Lakers of Mercyhurst for an Atlantic Hockey weekend series. The puck will drop Friday night at 7:05 p.m., while Saturday will be a 4:05 p.m. contest.

ABOUT AIC: The Yellow Jackets enter tonight's contest with an overall record of 3-7-3 after dropping a 3-2 decision on Saturday night against the Black Knights of Army. AIC is still in search of its first conference win of the season. Senior forward Adam Pleskach leads the team in scoring with four goals and eight assists for 12 points, while junior forward Jon Puskar is second in scoring with a team-best five goals with four assist for nine points. Junior forward Blake Peake is third on the team with three goals and four assists for seven points, while senior defenseman Jeff Ceccacci has a total of six assists for six points. Senior goaltender Ben Meisner is 2-6-3 with a 3.52 goals against average and a .915 save percentage with 385 saves.

LAST TIME OUT: AIC got on the board first netting a power play goal just 40 seconds into the second period. Junior Blake Peake buried a shot off a pass from senior Adam Pleskach. The Black Knights knotted the contest at the end of the second period, while scoring two more goals in the third period to earn a 3-1 lead over the Yellow Jackets. AIC would score one more goal at 16:49 when freshman Chris Porter found the back of the net off a pass from senior Nick Grasso and classmate Steve Mele. Senior goaltender Ben Meisner made 25 saves in the loss.

PLESKACH CLOSING IN ON 100: Pleskach enters tonight's contest with 95 career points (48 goals, 47 assists), and is now 5 away from becoming just the second 100-point scorer since the Yellow Jackets became a Division I program. The first was Guillaume Caron, who scored 117 points (61 goals, 56 assists) from 2000-04. Caron's totals in goals, assists and points are all AIC Division I records.

MEISNER APPROACHING SAVE RECORDS: Meisner became AIC's DI career saves record holder with 43 saves against Canisisus on November 24, 2012, Raising his career total to 2,965. He needs 49 more saves to become the programs all time career leader. Chance Thede holds the all-time record for career saves, stopping 3,014 shots on goal from 1997-2001.

ABOUT Mercyhurst: The Lakers enter the weekend with an overall record of 5-5-1 and 5-2-0 in the league after earning a 5-4 victory over Air Force on November 30th. Sophomore forward Ryan Misiak leads Mercyhurts with three goals and seven assists for 10 points. Sphomore forward Chris Bodo (four goals, three assits), senior forward Grant Blakey (three goals, four assists), sophomore forward Matthew Zay (three goals, four assists), and junior forward Kyle Just (two goals, five assists) are all tied for second with seven points each. Senior goaltender Max Strang is 3-3-0 in net for the Lakers with a total of 180 saves, .891 save percentage and a 3.81 goals gainst average.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Mercyhurst holds a 31-2-1 lead in the all-time series with AIC. The Yellow Jackets went 1-1-0 against the Lakers last season, earning a 3-2 victory, before dropping a 7-2 decision to close out the weekend series.