Elmira won a 4-2 decision over No. 5 Plattsburgh to capture the ECAC West postseason title and hold on to the No. 1 ranking in this week’s USCHO.com Division III Women’s Poll. Elmira has yet to lose to a Division III opponent. The Soaring Eagles also are atop the USCHO.com East Regional Pairwise Rankings (PWR).
No. 2 Bowdoin had a bye in the NESCAC tournament, and will next play Colby in the semifinals. The other semifinal will be a meeting between No. 4 Middlebury and No. 7 Williams. These two teams played to a 1-1 tie in their last meeting in February.
In the west, No. 5 Wis.-River Falls and No. 8 Wis.-Stevens Point were both idle, after the Falcon’s 5-1 win the previous week in the NCHA championship game. Both teams wait to hear the NCAA Tournament selections. They are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the West Regional PWR.
No. 10 St. Thomas won the MIAC tournament title with a 4-1 win over Gustavus Adolphus in the championship game. With the win, the Tommies are No. 3 in the West PWR.
The ECAC East semifinal match-ups are all set, with No. 3 Manhattanville facing off with RIT, one of only two Division III teams to win a game against the Valiants this year. The other semifinal sees No. 9 Rensselaer facing Southern Maine.
The USCHO.com Poll is compiled by U.S. College Hockey Online, and consists of 12 voters, all coaches of Division III programs.
The East and West Region PairWise Rankings attempt to mimic the process used by the NCAA Division III Selection Committee to determine participants for the women’s hockey tournament. A team is only compared against Division III teams within that team’s region.
The PWR can be reformatted and redistributed by any media outlet or person, provided USCHO’s URL (http://www.uscho.com/) accompanies the results.
