The Tigers represented the Rochester Institute of Technology, played their home games at the Gene Polisseni Center and were coached by Wayne Wilson in his 25th season.

Additionally, the team was unable to get to their offense while on the penalty kill and they spent much of the waning moments of the match defending rather than trying to get a tying goal.

While several of last year's point leaders got back into the swing of things swiftly, the team received a boots from the return of Elijah Gonsalves after he was forced to sit out two weeks with a lower body injury.

The first match was a bit of a mixed bag for the Tigers, with penalties being called left and right but the RIT power play proved to be the difference.

Two weeks later, with a little help from teams ahead of them losing, RIT entered the winter break in the top 16 and in line for a potential at large bid, a rarity for Atlantic Hockey.

The team recovered to win the consolation game, albeit with seven more penalties, but weren't punished too harshly in the national rankings, falling just one spot.

When the Tigers split successive weekends in the middle of February, it made it all but impossible for the team to get an at large bid and they found themselves in the same position that they were in 2023.

However, because their strength of schedule was far below other teams vying for the NCAA tournament, RIT could only reach the national postseason by winning their conference championship.

The other benefit was playing the lowest available seed when the did begin their postseason and, by a twist of fate, the Tigers opened with a home stand against last-place Robert Morris.

The next weekend brought another underdog to Rochester and, though they received a tougher challenge from Niagara, RIT was able to complete a second sweep thanks in large part to their penalty kill and goaltender.

As the final buzzer was approaching, AIC pulled their goaltender and the Tigers popped in two empty-net markers to seal the game and send them back to the national tournament for the first time in eight years.

RIT was sent to the western regional, held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and played in front of a not-quite hostile crowd.

Elijah Gonsalves managed to cut the lead in half with a power play marker before the end of the period but the Tigers still had to find a way to stop the Terrier's attack.

RIT had put together one of the best seasons the team had seen, falling one shy of the program record with 27 wins while finishing as the #6 offense in the country with 3.9 goals per game.