The ECAC-West: The little conference that could

by Benet Pols 

Here’s a primer for the ECAC-West, the home conference of the Utica College Pioneers, Bowdoin’s host for this weekend's NCAA quarterfinals. The puck will be dropped at 8:30 PM in the famed Utica Auditorium----that is, if each of the four high school games set to be played at the Aud Saturday finish on schedule.   

The ECAC-West has just six teams and so does not have an Automatic Qualifier, or AQ, for the NCAA tournament. The NCAA requires a conference to field at least seven teams before it can send an AQ to the NCAA Div. III men’s ice hockey tournament. Thus, this year, any team from the ECAC-West with realistic hopes for the NCAA had to wait for the NCAA to designate its three Pool-C, or at-large, qualifiers before learning whether they’d make the tournament.

The conference members, in order of the final regular season standings, are: Utica, Hobart, Neumann, Manhattanville, Elmira and Nazareth.  Utica finished the season 11-3-1 in conference and 20-5-1 overall.

Utica and Hobart were consistently ranked high all season in media polls such as USCHO.com and D3Hockey rankings (links found on left sidebar). However, the hockey media is not used to determine which three teams qualify for the at large bids. Instead, the NCAA uses its own regional rankings, which were released publicly on February 12, 19 and 27.  The NCAA regional rankings rate 16 teams from the east and 8 from the west. A fourth set of rankings was generated on Selection Sunday, March 3rd, but those were not released to the public.

As of February 19th^, Utica and Hobart were ranked first and third, respectively, in the Regional Rankings. Because of this many observers concluded both teams had a lock on two of the available three spots from Pool-C.

Hobart's mascot was not happy about missing the tourney

But conference tournaments are rough. Consider the quarterfinals of the NESCAC, where each of the first round games went down to the wire and no tournament game was decided by more than 2 goals, including empty netters. In the ECAC-West semi-finals Neumann defeated Hobart 2-0, while Manhattanville ousted Utica 2-1 in OT.

Neumann and Manhattanville faced off for the ECAC-West crown March 2nd with Neumann pulling away with a 3-0 victory but neither team figured high enough in the NCAA regional rankings to merit consideration for an NCAA Pool-C bid.

Because of their conference tournament loses Utica and Hobart dropped to second and sixth, respectively, in the NCAA regional rankings released on February 27th. With no more games to play neither could do anything to help improve their ranking before selection Sunday. Hobart’s fate would be determined in other conference tournaments. With Norwich losing the ECAC-East final at home to Babson, in what some considered an upset, the Cadets were out as an AQ, but, as the number 1 team in the Regional Rankings, jumped right into Pool-C. Norwich ended up with one Pool-C bid, Utica took one and a western team, Wisconsin Eau Claire, took the other. This left the Statesmen with nothing to do but watch lacrosse by the Finger Lakes.

Utica and the ECAC-West in the NCAAs.

This will be Utica’s first appearance in the NCAA tournament, but others from the conference have done well in the past.

In 2008 and again in 2009, three teams from ECAC-West made the field of eleven.

2009 saw one of the field, Neumann, go on to win it all, having to best two of its conference mates along the way. The Knights beat Elmira in a first round NCAA game, and then knocked out Hobart in the national semi-final.  A 4-1 win over Gustavus Adolphus of the MIAC gave the Knights the 2009 National Championship.

In 2010 Elmira was included in the field of 11 where they bested ECAC-NE champion Curry,4-1, in the first round before being eliminated by Norwich in OT, 2-1.

Again in 2011 two teams from the ECAC-West, Neumann and conference Champion Elmira both made the field. Elmira was dispatched by Adrian of the MCHA while Neumann traveled to Brunswick and was eliminated by Bowdoin 2-1 in a rock ‘em, sock ‘em affair.

Last year, Elmira again made the field of eleven but was dumped by Oswego,5-0, in the first round.

How have Utica and the ECAC-West done against NESCAC this year?

Utica bested Amherst,4-3, at the Aud in November

Utica beat Amherst 4-3 in an early season match-up on November 24th at the Aud.  A look at the box score shows a relatively evenly played game with Utica’s Nick Therrien called on to make 29 saves, while Nathan Corey saved  25 for the Lord Jeffs.

Hobart thumped Hamilton 8-1 in another early non-conference affair.

Conference tournament runner up Manhattanville, which held a 13th place regional ranking on February 27th, pounded Tufts, beat Connecticut College, and lost to Trinity.  Manhattanville was 1-2-1 against Utica this year including the Valiants’ 2-1 tournament win on 2/23.

Elmira, 5^th place at 5-10 in the ECAC-West and 10-16 overall, lost to Amherst 5-1 and to Wesleyan 5-2 in the Cardinal Classic over the winter break. Elmira was 1-2 against Utica with decidedly mixed results on a weekend series in November at the Aud. Elmira suffered an 11-2 humiliation the first night just to bounce back the second day for a 7-4 win. The Pioneer’s regular goaltender Nick Therrien did not start the second game of the weekend but was called on to play the final 35 minutes; he gave up 3 goals along with an empty netter.  In mid-January, the Pioneers traveled to Elmira and took the rubber match 6-4.

Only Neumann and last place Nazareth played no one in NESCAC.

Bowdoin’s history against the ECAC-West.

The only game between Bowdoin and an ECAC-West team during the last four seasons was the first round NCAA playoff game on March 9,  2011.

Bowdoin, at 19-8-1 overall, had won the NESCAC conference championship at Williams.  2011 was the last season of the interlocked schedule between the ECAC-East and NESCAC.  The Polar Pears, at 11-7-1 in the conference, finished tied for third with Middlebury and Amherst but were seeded fifth because of tiebreakers. Bowdoin took a road win at Amherst in the quarterfinal before beating Colby in the semi-final and the host, Williams, for the hardware and the NCAA tournament AQ.

Neumann had been the ECAC-West runner-up and received one of the coveted Pool-C bids for the NCAA tournament. The game itself was a rough one. Neumann accumulated 42 minutes in penalties with nine minors, a five-minute major and two ten-minute (game) misconducts, while the PBs were whistled for nine minors.  There were four sets of matching minors.

Neumann drew first blood with a first period shorthanded goal. Bowdoin took the lead in the second period on goals by Bryan Rosata and current senior Rob Tozcylowski. This was definitely a case of secondary scoring as it was Senior Rosata’s first goal of the year and sophomore Tozcylowski’s fifth of the season. While the first two periods were evenly played, Neumann pressed hard in the third, outshooting Bowdoin 12-6 for the period. Bowdoin’s Steve Messina, then a freshman, made 33 saves for the 2-1 win.

Thanks to Bowdoin Sports Info, we have video of both goals from the 2011 Tourney game.