USU ready to skate into nationals
Some students view spring break as an opportunity to travel to an exotic location and let loose for a week. Utah State’s hockey team, however, will be on a business trip to St. Louis for the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s National Tournament from March 15-19.
Utah State skated out of the west region as the number-one seed, earning an automatic berth in the national tournament without having to compete at the regional tournament.
“It’s pretty awesome,” said USU captain Brian Gibbons. “It’s the first time that USU has done that, and it’s hockey history. It’s an honor to be a part of this team and be number one all year.”
The Aggies were dominant in the west region, recording 10-1 record against the three other teams coming out of the west: Weber State, Colorado State and Arizona State. The Aggies only lost to Colorado State on the road.
One reason for USU’s success against the other top teams in their regions has been their attention to team defense.
“The team has been pretty talented ever since I’ve been here, but this year’s a little different,” said senior forward Matt Hamilton. “We kind of revamped the way we play the game. Instead of our run-and-gun offense we usually have, we started thinking about defense a little more.”
Utah State allowed 1.9 goals per game while scoring 5.5 goals per game clip.
“You have to play defense to win championships,” Hamilton said. “If the other team can’t score, you should be pretty successful.”
Skipping the regional tournament has many benefits for a team that played a physical style of hockey all season long.
“You get a little bit of time off to heal injuries and stuff like that,” Hamilton said. “You get a little more practice time in. You get to prepare for playoff hockey. There’s nothing in your way except for game one at nationals. It’s a good feeling that you get to focus on the start of the tournament instead of having to go through regionals.”
One down side to skipping regionals is the team won’t have played a competitive hockey game in about a month. But in order to counter the long down time, the team stayed active.
“Just kind do what you’ve been doing the whole year,” said goaltender Bryce Scherschel. “A lot of guys aren’t going to change anything up. It’s not like guys are going to start suddenly working out, including myself. I’ve kind of been in the gym all season. Just stay on the ice, stay in the gym and stay sharp.”
Utah State will face New Hampshire, Bowling Green and tournament-host St. Louis in pool play. The winner of each of the four pools moves on to the knockout round.
New Hampshire is 17-6-2 on the year, and are the No. 2-ranked team coming out of the northeast region. Bowling Green earned a record of 19-8-1 and came out of its regional tournament as a 5-seed. St. Louis earned an automatic bid to the national tournament by hosting it. The Billikens finished the season with a record of 22-11 and ended up tenth in the central region.
On paper, this could be viewed as the easiest pool the Aggies have been in the last three years, but anything can happen in playoff hockey.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said defenseman Ty Johns. “I feel like we have a very solid chance this year. Hopefully we can get it done.”
The national tournament has been streamed online in the past. Utah State hockey will post more information about watching the games on the team Facebook and Twitter accounts when information becomes available.
– sean.osullivan@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @seansy89