The ECAC West amassed a nice collection of hardware during holiday tournaments. A pair of first place trophies and a second place one have been added to the shelves at three of the schools.
Manhattanville defeated a pair of nationally ranked teams to take the title in the Northfield Bank Tournament at Norwich. The Valiants entered the weekend down four players who couldn’t get back to school because of the Nor’easter that rolled up the Atlantic coast on December 26th.
The good news was the return of Scott Hudson, who had missed the previous eight games due to injury. Hudson tallied three assists in the first round game as Manhattanville defeated No. 7 Adrian 6-3. The Valiants scored a pair of goals in each period with a balanced attack.
“I thought it was a very gutsy effort by our team,” said Manhattanville head coach Keith Levinthal. “It has been a difficult week and we had to deal with a lot of distractions. And then to lose two guys early in the game, it required us to rely heavily on the guys we had – and to their credit, they did a great job. We haven’t always been ready to go the first game after break, but we came out strong this time.”
In addition to the four who didn’t make the trip, Manhattanville also lost a player to injury in the first period and one to a game misconduct in the second, resulting in a much shorter bench.
Manhattanville rolled on to take the tournament title by downing No. 4 Norwich 5-1 on Saturday. Mickey Lang’s tally midway through the second period, his fourteenth of the year, moved him into a tie for most goals scored in the season nationally.
Pierre-Olivier Lemieux named MVP after making 53 saves on 56 shots during the tournament. Manhattanviille is a perfect 9-0-1 in non-conference play this season.
Also claiming a tournament title was Hobart, who defeated Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Hamilton in the Pathfinder Bank Oswego Classic Holiday Tournament. Thursday’s 6-3 victory over Stevens Point marked the 150th win for head coach Mark Taylor.
Look for more coverage of Hobart’s tournament success later this week in my ECAC West column.
Neumann was also in tournament action last weekend, playing in Plattsburgh’s Cardinal Classic. The Knights played to a hard fought 1-1 tied against New England College in the opening game. To decide who would advance the tournament format called for a shootout. After six rounds of shooters, Neumann finally prevailed 2-1.
The Knights lost to Plattsburgh in the championship game by a 2-1 score in a very closely played contest. Neumann’s only goal of the game came late in the second period, scored by Steve Gervais, when the Knights outshot Plattsburgh 15-7.
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