Harvard advanced to the ECAC Semifinals with a pair of wins over Cornell, and stays first in both the USCHO.com Division I Women’s Poll and the USCHO.com Division I Women’s Pairwise Rankings (PWR). Harvard will face Brown, which upset No. 8 St. Lawrence in three games this weekend.
Minnesota-Duluth finished at No. 2 in both ratings following a 5-3 win over No. 3 Minnesota in the WCHA championship on Saturday. Both teams will almost certainly be invited to the NCAA Tournament, which takes place starting March 21 in Duluth, Minn.
No. 4 Dartmouth has the early lead on the fourth spot in the tournament, and scored 16 goals in two games with Colgate to pass on to the ECAC semifinals. The Big Green will meet with No. 9 Princeton, with the winner to play in the championship game on Sunday.
After losing to Minnesota in the WCHA semifinals, No. 5 Wisconsin won the consolation game against Ohio State. The Badgers are long shots for the NCAA Tournament, and will have to wait until the pairings are announced on the evening of Sunday, March 16th.
No. 6 New Hampshire and No. 7 Providence battled throughout the season for the inaugural Hockey East regular season title, and Providence won by one point in the conference standings. If UNH can get past Maine and the Friars can down Connecticut, the two will meet for the first league tournament title, with a possible NCAA tournament berth on the line.
Mercyhurst captured the CHA tournament title with a 1-0 win over Findlay on Sunday, but despite a 25-8-1 record, will likely have to wait until next season for its next game. The Lakers are one of a very few squads that will end their season with a win.
The USCHO.com Poll is compiled by U.S. College Hockey Online, and consists of 15 voters, including 11 coaches of Division I programs and four women’s hockey writers.
The Pairwise Ranking attempts to mimic the method used by the NCAA Selection Committee to determine participants for the NCAA Division I women’s hockey tournament. The PWR compares only those at or above .500, judging them by five criteria: record against common opponents, record in last 16 games, head to head competition, record against other teams at or above .500, and the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).
The PWR can be reformatted and redistributed by any media outlet or person, provided USCHO’s URL (http://www.uscho.com/) accompanies the results.
