Utah State hockey team finishes sixth in final national rankings
The Utah State hockey club placed sixth at the national tournament in Detroit, according to rankings that were released Monday.
Although the rankings weren’t official until this week, the Aggies were expecting to finish fifth or sixth.
“I thought we should have been fifth,” Aggie Robert Hashimoto said. “That kind of hurts us, but I still think we did well.”
USU’s only loss in the tournament was 8-3 to Oakland, the tournament host and national runner-up. The Aggies beat Indiana 11-6 in their first game and beat Siena 6-5 in overtime in their third game.
The Aggies went into the tournament as the lowest ranked team from the West Region, which was perceived as being the weakest region in the country.
“We came in ranked fourth in the west which is 16th as far as everyone else is concerned,” Aggie Aaron Burrell said. “It’s pretty sweet to finish off the way we did like this. We turned a lot of heads.”
Hashimoto shared Burrell’s optimism.
“We proved a lot of teams wrong,” he said. “Our first win was huge. Indiana was supposed to be in the top three and we smoked them. We proved that the West isn’t weak.”
The No. 6 ranking is the highest USU has finished since 1999 when it placed No. 5. The Aggies’ only loss that year was to the national champion with two seconds left in the game.
“It felt nothing like it did this year,” Burrell said, who was a freshman in 1999. “It was kind of a disappointment then. We’re all pretty pumped about this year.”
USU is hoping to use its good finish to help its recruiting.
“I think it will help out a lot,” Hashimoto said. “There’s a lot of prospects we’re looking at.”
Hashimoto said the biggest prospect the Aggies are looking at right now is Aggie Mike Lewandowski’s little brother, Dave Lewandowski.
“He’s a really good player,” he said. “He played with tournament MVP [Marco Trevino of Michigan State].”
Burrell said now that his six-year career at USU is over, his summer is going to feel a little different.
Burrell said he and Aggie Nick Thiros are looking into playing hockey in Europe next season.
Both of the players just finished their final year at USU with this season.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu