Friday, February 9, 2018

Roundup 2/2-2/3

Trinity (15-3-2;12-1-1 NESCAC (25 pts) ) virtually locked up the NESCAC regular season crown with an entertaining 4-3 win over Williams (Box) and 3-0 handling of Middlebury (Box). The Friday night game against the Ephs featured a fun final minute with a 6-on-4 for Williams (pulled goalie + power play) in which Alex Morin made the save below (courtesy of Jake Donnelly) to help the Bantams hold on. Morin would then make 24 saves for the shutout the next day against the Panthers. In a testament to head coach Matt Greason's recruiting and coaching abilities, Tyler Whitney became the sixth Greason player in the last four years to join the 100 point club with an assist on Friday night, joining Anthony Sabitsky who joined the prestigious club earlier this season. The Bantams now have a seven point cushion headed into the final four games of the regular season.

 

In a distant second are the surprising Camels of Connecticut College (9-9-2; 8-4-2 18 pts).  The Camels skated to a 0-0 tie (Box) at Tufts on Friday - the second such score in the NESCAC in two weeks after two years between 0-0 games - before a dramatic 4-3 OT come from behind win (Box) in New London the next night against the same Jumbos. USCHO did a feature on the surprise second place team this week, focusing on how much fun the team has. Winning is fun, and the Camels have ridden the stellar play of Connor Rodericks in net and the ability to win close games - (6-1-2) mark in the last nine, including five one goal games- to have said fun winning.
Wesleyan (11-5-4; 7-4-3 17 pts) leads the 3-6 pack that are all within four points of Conn College. Tim Sestak stopped 36 of the 37 shots he saw all weekend to earn NESCAC Player of the Week honors and power the Cards to 3-1 (Box) and 3-0 (Box) victories over Middlebury and Williams, respectively. Saturday's game included  Dylan Holze with his NESCAC leading tenth conference goal of the season. The senior from Lynbrook, NY has fourteen total goals on the season, or more than he scored in his first three collegiate seasons combined.

Amhest (9-7-4; 6-4-4 NESCAC 16 pts) and Hamilton (13-6-1; 7-6-1 15 pts) after sweeping hte Maine teams.  Colby (10-10-0;7-7-0 14 pts) lost to Hamilton 4-2 on Friday (Box) and 5-1 (Box) to Amherst. The usually potent Mules offense (2nd behind only Trinity in goals per game) was stiffled by Anthony Tirabassi and Connor Girard. Tirabassi has stabilized a bit in replacing the injured reigning D3 player of the year with the two goals allowed to Colby and a 5-3 victory over Bowdoin (Box). Neil Conway had a goal and an assist in his return after missing a weekend, while Brandon Willett and Nick Ursitti each had multiple-goal games on the weekend. Bowdoin did not have much better luck the night before in a 4-2 loss (Box) to the Mammoths thanks to two goals from Pat Daly .

Coming up in seventh are the aformentioned Ephs of Williams (10-10-0;6-8-0 12 pts), who have had an uncharacteristic fall from grace with a six game losing streak. Williams hanged tough with Trinity, including the NESCAC's best power play unit (13/29) notching two tallies and an Alex Morin glove away from a third. They followed it up by being shutout by Wesleyan, being outshot by -14, and having their coach say they didn't play their game on Saturday.

Tufts (4-12-4; 3-8-3 9 pts) rounds out the current playoff spots in eight after a hard fought but disappointing one point weekend against Conn College. It could have been a three point weekend, with the Jumbos up by two in the third period at Conn, but turnovers in the final frame cost them .

On the outside looking in are Bowdoin (7-13-0; 4-10-0 8 pts), who are very much in contention for a playoff spot with a Tufts team they will face the final weekend, and a Middlebury team (4-14-2; 2-10-2 6 pts) that has only been able to muster one goal a game in conference this season and that will probably miss the playoffs for a second straight year.

Considering the histories of the two programs with recently retired legends in Terry Meagher and Billl Beaney (who are both still on their respective campuses), it feels very odd to see these two on the outside looking in.  Bowdoin got some good news this week, however, as good guy senior Camill Blanchet was named one of five finalists out of all of college hockey for the 2018 Hockey Humanitarian Award.



Should be a fun final two weekends of the regular season!


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