Most remember that last year’s D-III Frozen Four was hosted by the CCC’s Endicott and also included the University of New England among the finalists. What people may not remember is that Curry, also out of the CCC, was also an NCAA tournament team that defeated Bowdoin in the first round before losing to eventual national champion Hobart in the quarterfinals. Just a couple of weeks ago the Colonels sat in fourth place in the conference standings but a current “7-game heater” finds head coach Peter Roundy’s team atop the CCC with just five games remaining in the regular season. Things are tight amongst last year’s NCAA incumbents and when you throw in a very solid Salve Regina team (this week’s opponent for Curry), winning the conference may be the perfect setup for more March hockey.
“We got off to a shaky start,” said Roundy. “We had some impactful losses that included two All-Americans and our leading scorer. Add in season ending injuries to a couple more key offensive pieces and we needed some guys to step up and I think we are seeing that now with our recent success. Shane [Soderwall] has come in and stabilized the goaltending situation for us while our mostly first-year defensive group has matured and shown that experience as sophomores this year. The first line is where we have seen a lot of momentum and production that has helped lead the way for our younger forwards as a group. We brought in a couple of forwards at the semester break to help us with our depth and the group is playing well and the results have been there since coming back in the New Year.”
Sophomore Gage Dill (8G – 12A – 20 Pts; +14) has built on his very successful freshman campaign playing along side junior Eelis Laaksonen (10G – 9A – 19 Pts; +10) and senior Tao Ishizuka (7G – 11A – 18 Pts; +12). The line has contributed significantly to the Colonels’ goal production and makes things difficult for the opposition each game.
“Gage is certainly not an unknown commodity at this point in his career here,” stated Roundy. “He has built off his experience and taken another step in his development playing with Eelis and Tao. Tao has had the kind of year that we always thought he could have because he is finally healthy this season. If you can think of an injury, Tao probably had it at some point in his time here. He is healthy and contributing a lot on the line he is with as well as the power play and special teams. We aren’t afraid of putting these guys out in any situation.”
With Curry’s upward movement in the CCC standings, the focus now shifts to continuing to play their game and positioning themselves for the conference tournament and maybe something more beyond the CCC title.
“We can’t ignore where we are in the standings nor the Pairwise rankings at this point,” noted Roundy. “We need to talk about what all the hard work has presented to us with this recent streak and how the focus has to be the same for this weekend against Salve Regina and then the remaining conference schedule as it comes time to play Wentworth, Western New England, and Suffolk to close out the regular season. We have the tiebreaker with Endicott which is a good thing if it comes to that. We control our destiny by playing our game against the remaining opponents including a dangerous Salve team this weekend. There is still a lot of hockey to be played but right now our focus is on continuing to earn wins with the remaining league games to be played in February.”
This weekend’s home-and-home series begins at Salve Regina on Friday night and is followed by a return home to face the Seahawks again in their only regular season meetings.
“The games at this point of the season are all important,” said Roundy. “There is just one point separating Endicott, us and Salve and UNE is only a couple more points behind so a good weekend keeps you in the mix while a bad weekend could drop a team all the way to fourth place. There is a lot to play for with home-ice advantage and having teams coming to our rink for big games. I thought we handled the pressure of last week’s matchup with UNE very well and hope to see that experience carry over this week against the Seahawks.”
