New Season, New Teams, New Tournament<\/p>\n
Adrian and Cortland officially kicked off the Division III women”s season last weekend with the Bulldogs shutting out the Red Dragons 5-0 in Cortland.<\/p>\n
However, this weekend things start to pick up with 21 games on tap, including St. Norbert and St. Scholastica’s inaugural games as well as the inaugural East\/West Hockey Classic hosted by Norwich University on Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n
St. Norbert and St. Scholastica begin varsity status this season, bringing the total number of D-III teams up to 49, three away from the magic number of 52 that would bring the NCAA Tournament field up to an even eight teams.<\/p>\n
Most eyes however, will be on Northfield, Vt. this weekend and Kreitzberg Arena, where defending NCAA runner-up Norwich will host its first ever women’s tournament.<\/p>\n
Norwich coach Mark Bolding has pulled out all the stops and brought in a loaded field, giving everyone an early gauge of where they are at heading into the 2010-2011 season.<\/p>\n
ECAC West powerhouses Elmira and Rochester Institute Technology will join Norwich, as well as fellow ECAC East league opponent New England College, for this year’s field.<\/p>\n
The tournament will feature four pre-determined matchups. with Elmira and New England College opening play at 4 p.m. on Friday, while Norwich hosts R.I.T. at 7 p.m. in the nightcap.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The following day, R.I.T. meets New England College at 3 p.m. with the Cadets facing Elmira at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
Elmira and Norwich have become well-acquainted with each other over the past two seasons, meeting in the NCAA Tournament both years. Elmira downed the Cadets 3-2 in the quarterfinals two years ago and then Norwich beat the Soaring Eagles 3-2 in the Frozen Four last season.<\/p>\n
This will mark the first-ever meeting between R.I.T. and Norwich. The Tigers have made one NCAA appearance, coming in 2007 in their last season as a member of the ECAC East before switching over to the ECAC West.<\/p>\n
Early Impressions<\/p>\n
Welcome to Oswego Mackenzie Lee. The junior transfer from Plattsburgh scored a hat trick in her first game wearing a green and gold sweater, helping the Lakers down Aurora 6-2 in their preseason game last Saturday.<\/p>\n
Adrian had five different goal scorers, including two freshman in its 5-0 season opening win over Cortland. The Bulldogs host Oswego this weekend in an intriguing pair of games that I’ll be keeping my eye on.<\/p>\n
Poll Picks<\/p>\n
1. Amherst
\n2. Norwich
\n3. Gustavus Adolphus
\n4. Plattsburgh
\n5. Wisconsin-River Falls
\n6. RIT
\n7. Elmira
\n8. Manhattanville
\n9. Middlebury
\n10. Lake Forest<\/p>\n
It used to be hard to find 10 quality teams to put into this poll. Now anybody that follows the game closely has a hard time trying to figure out what 5-10 deserving teams are left out of the poll. I went through numerous other teams in my head, like Manhattanville, St. Catherine, Trinity, Superior, Adrian, Stevens Point, Utica, Neumann etc. but those are the 10 that I felt deserved to be in the most based on returning players, past history, and incoming recruits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Season, New Teams, New Tournament Adrian and Cortland officially kicked off the Division III women”s season last weekend with the Bulldogs shutting out the Red Dragons 5-0 in Cortland. However, this weekend things start to pick up with 21 games on tap, including St. Norbert and St. Scholastica’s inaugural games as well as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n