Amherst Wins 2008 NESCAC Women's Ice Hockey Championship

Courtesy Middlebury Athletic Communications

Box Score

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Amherst scored three second period goals en route to its second consecutive NESCAC Women's Ice Hockey Championship with a 7-1 win over Colby at Middlebury. The Jeffs earned the league’s automatic bid and will make their second NCAA Tournament appearance when the pairings are announced on Monday, while Colby ends its season with a 15-9-3 mark.

Amherst (20-3-4) tied the program record for wins in a season with the victory in the championship game.

Colby had a great chance early when Laura Anning was stopped on a breakaway, as Krystyn Elek made a second save on a rebound attempt by Amanda Comeau. Amherst took a 1-0 lead at 8:41 as Julia Koch’s shot from the right point was saved before Lindsey Harrington pounced on the rebound for the goal. The Jeffs almost made it a 2-0 game at 11:30, but Anning cleared the puck off the goal line on a shot from Courtney Hanlon after Colby netminder Lacey Brown was down. Colby had another opportunity later in the period, but Colette Finley’s shot was cleared off the goal line by an Amherst defender after the shot trickled through the five-hole of Krystyn Elek. The Mules broke through with 2:41 left in the period as Stephanie Scarpato snapped a wrister into the top of the net from the high slot.

Amherst scored the first of its three second period goals just 1:40 in as Michelle McGann found the back of the net from the slot. Harrington scored her second of the game on a great play, as she one-timed a pass from Courtney Hanlon for the 3-1 lead. Kate Dennett scored a shorthanded goal at the 12:55 mark, as she intercepted a pass and skated in with wrister to the top right corner from the left face-off circle.

Hanlon, Anna MacLean and Braidie Campbell added third period goals to seal the win for Amherst. Elek made 21 saves in goal to pick up the win, while Brown made 19 stops in 40 minutes and Genevieve Triganne stopped three in 20 minutes for the Mules.

2008 NESCAC WOMEN’S ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Saturday, March 1 at Higher Seeds
at No. 2 Amherst 5, No. 7 Bowdoin 1
at No. 4 Colby 3, No. 5 Connecticut College 1
at No. 3 Trinity 5, No. 6 Hamilton 1

Semifinals - Saturday, March 8 at Middlebury
No. 4 Colby 3, at No. 1 Middlebury 2 - OT
No. 2 Amherst 2, vs. No. 3 Trinity 1

Championship - Sunday, March 9 at Middlebury
No. 2 Amherst 7, vs. No. 4 Colby 1

2008 NESCAC WOMEN'S ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
First Round - Saturday, March 1
Time TBA at Higher Seeds
No. 7 vs. No. 2
No. 6 vs. No. 3
No. 5 vs. No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, March 8
at No. 1 Seed
1:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, March 9
1:00 p.m.

Format
The top 7 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Women's Ice Hockey Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Saturday, March 1, 2008 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9 respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Format if Men and Women are Playing at the Same Site
Preliminary Round
If both a men's and a women's first round game are being played at the same site, both games shall be played on Saturday with scheduled start times of 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.  In odd years the men's game will be played first and in even years the women's game will be played first.

Semifinal and Championship Round
If both the men's and women's semifinals and finals are being played at the same site, one of the championships will be conducted Friday evening and Saturday evening.  As the men's NCAA championship tournament starts earlier than the women's championship, the men's games will be played on Friday/Saturday (with game times of 4:00 p.m./7:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.) with the women's games played Saturday/Sunday (with game times of 12:30 p.m./3:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.).

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play.  The number one seed will receive a first round bye and will host the semifinal and final rounds. The next three seeds will host first round games with the number two seed drawing the number 7 seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Sunday, February 24.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.