Air Force hockey may have played itself out of a play-in situation.

With a wire-to-wire 3-2 victory at Bentley – the Atlantic Hockey America’s top team – Air Force leapt out of seventh place in the conference on Friday night as it began its consequential final series of the regular-season.

The Nos. 7 and 8 teams play a winner-take-all play-in game on Tuesday. The Air Force win, coupled with a loss from Canisius, means it now owns sixth place with a two-point cushion.

The automatic entry into next weekend’s AHA first round isn’t secure, but it’s far more likely than it was prior to the game.

“It was a must-win game for us tonight,” Air Force coach Frank Serratore said. “It was not going to be a moral-victory night, it had to be a victory on-the-scoreboard night. We found a way to get that done.”

Air Force (16-13-4, 12-10-3 AHA) jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first period. Nolan Cunningham scored his seventh goal of the season 8:26 into the game and Will Dawson scored on a power play with 8 seconds left in the period.

Bentley (18-10-5, 16-5-4), which has already sewn up the regular-season title after winning the conference tournament titles a year ago, pulled within a goal just 46 seconds into the second period.

Freshman Oli Genest scored his fifth goal in four games – accounting for all the goals in his young career – 1:09 into the third and the Falcons survived from there, though Bentley’s conference-leading power play tightened the score with 6:37 remaining on its third consecutive power play in the period.

Air Force fought off multiple attempts late as goalkeeper Dominik Wasik finished with 33 saves.

The three Air Force goals came against Bentley goalie Nicholas Bevilacqua, who leads the nation in save percentage.

Air Force found itself in this position after a pair of disappointing weekends, but came up clutch to earn control of its path to the conference quarterfinals.

“This is where we wanted to be at the conclusion of tonight,” Serratore said. “If we point at all (Saturday), we get Tuesday off.”