AFA Sports   Air Force Academy sports

The Falcons dominated the early minutes.George Michalke and Jason Fabian passed Casey Klesinger in front of the net  within a span of 30 seconds (at 5:45 and 6:15), but Klesinger couldn’t handle the puck either time.

Yale rebounded in a big way at 10:10 in the period. Andrew Miller beat goaltender Jason Torf and clanged the post. At 16:30, Miller had a clear look at the net from 15 feet, but Torf made a glove save.

The crowd is clearly pro-Yale, but the crowd is strangely quiet. This is not what anyone would call a rowdy hockey crowd.

Writing from beautiful downtown Bridgeport, Ct., which is actually not nearly as awful as advertised. Did a little walking around before arriving at Harboryard Arena, and did not see any muggers or burning buildings. Did see about two dozen police officers.

As for hockey, Air Force has a strong chance tonight, even if Yale is playing less than 20 miles from its neo-Gothic campus.

Here’s the thing to remember if you’re looking for reasons to believe in the Falcons:

Air Force barely lost, falling by one goal to Minnesota and  Miami, in NCAA appearances in 2007 and 2008, and then delivered an upset for the ages in 2009 against Michigan.

Frank Serratore is a superb big-game coach. Yes, the Falcons will be battling against what essentially will be a Yale home crowd, and, yes, Air Force is the 16th-seed in a 16-team tournament.

But the Falcons under Serratore’s direction play their best when it matters the most.

A nine-episode television show, billed as a “docu-drama,” will focus on Long Beach Poly High School’s 2010 football season and feature incoming Air Force football recruit Dabness Atkins – a press release on the show touted him as the “star of the series,” ahead of the seven other Long Beach Poly players who received college football scholarships. The show begins on Current TV on May 26.

Atkins is an undersized defensive back, and was one of many Long Beach Poly students who received college scholarships this year.

(EDIT: I was sent this bio of Atkins by the public-relations folks at Current TV, Atkins sounds like an interesting person – “(H)is clean cut image masks a more turbulent home life.  He lives with Starr Scott, the Poly team manager.  His father passed from cancer and when his mother remarried, Dabness had a difficult relationship with his mom’s new husband and decided to move out of the house. His pursuit of perfection can lead to friction with other players as he expects the same of his teammates.”)

Long Beach Poly is well known for its athletic programs, with alumni like NFL receiver DeSean Jackson, baseball great Tony Gwynn and tennis legend Billie Jean King, so a documentary on the football team makes sense. Here’s a trailer for the series:

And here’s a highlight film of Atkins:

When I wrote about the Air Force men’s basketball sophomore class earlier this week, I didn’t focus probably as much as I should have on guard Michael Lyons. The class is good, there are a lot of pieces that fit together, but its success will ultimately hinge on Lyons and his progression from a good player to a great one. He’s the one player the Falcons have who could be an individual star.

When I talked to Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds about the sophomore class this week, he said he thought Lyons should have gotten higher than the third-team all-conference honor he received this season. Reynolds added that Lyons could move up to first or second team next season.

“I could see him making that kind of jump,” Reynolds said.

Lyons finished the season very well. Lyons scored 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting against North Dakota in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament and 24 points on 8-of-13 shooting against Santa Clara. That should give him confidence into the offseason.

Lyons will need to work on some things as he slides over into a role that will require more ballhandling, taking over Evan Washington’s old spot. He could use a little more weight as a junior next season, but Reynolds has said he doesn’t doubt Lyons’ commitment to improve. Lyons had a very good offseason before his sophomore year and raised his scoring average from 6.9 to 13.7.

When I was finishing talking to Lyons after an Air Force practice at the Mountain West Conference Tournament, Zach Bohannon called out that he wanted me to print something. Bohannon said he thought Lyons was going to be conference player of the year by his senior season.

If that comes to pass, Air Force basketball should be in pretty good shape.

Click here to join the conversation about AFA and CC hockey. I am in St. Louis so I’ll announce the CC lines during the chat.

Join Colorado Springs Gazette college hockey writer Joe Paisley and the New Haven (Conn.) Register’s beat writers as they talk Air Force and Yale hockey as the teams prepare for their Friday NCAA Tournament game in Bridgeport, Conn.

Got to sports/afa to find the module to join in.

One of the best parts of Air Force football games are the pregame flyovers, which are always entertaining. But there are rules, and breaking them during a flyover at an Iowa football game at Kinnick Stadium last season has led to punishment for Air Force pilot Maj. Christopher Kopacek.

According to HawkCentral.com, which is run by the Des Moines Register and Iowa City Press-Citizen, Kopacek violated four military rules and will leave the Air Force of his own accord. The story has the details of what rules he broke.

Sure many of you have seen the video of the flyover – it’s pretty amazing if you haven’t.

Good story from Brent Schrotenboer of the San Diego Union-Tribune on the financial windfall for the Mountain West Conference from getting a couple teams into the Sweet 16 of this year’s NCAA Tournament.

As the article states, each team in the conference gets a share of the revenue for each NCAA Tournament game played by a member school. Every game played is worth $240,000 to the conference. BYU and San Diego State have already played two games each with at least one more to go, and UNLV played one, giving the conference about $1.7 million (seven games multiplied by $240,000) to share every year over the next six years. That pays for a few CollegeInsider.com Tournament appearances.

That number will grow if San Diego State and BYU continue to win. So it’s pretty easy to figure out who Air Force’s athletic department will be rooting for this week.

Since it has been a popular topic on the blog comments, here’s a story on Gazette.com explaining the financial details of Air Force men’s basketball’s trip to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. There’s also details about a bonus for coach Jeff Reynolds in that story.

President Barack Obama announced today he plans to nominate Dr. Chris Howard, a 1991 Air Force graduate and two-time letter winner on the football team, as a member of the National Security Education Board. Here is the academy’s release on Howard’s nomination.

Howard was a two-time Academic All-American for the Falcons in 1989 and 1990, and is one of four Falcons football players in the Academic All-America Hall of Fame, joining Brock Strom, Rich Mayo and Chad Hennings. Howard was inducted in 2003.

While Howard has done fairly well for himself after his football career at Air Force, he was a pretty good player as well. He started for two seasons at running back for the Falcons and averaged 4.5 yards per carry.