LATROBE, PA — Riding a club-record 12-game winning streak, the Saint Vincent College hockey team is off to the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) Men’s Division 3 (MD3) national tournament.
The MD3 tournament will be held March 7-12 at the Centene Community Ice Center in Maryland Heights, MO. Saint Vincent, the No. 16 seed, will begin pool play at 9:15 ET Thursday against top-seeded Lawrence Tech. SVC will play eighth-seeded Arkansas at 3:15 p.m. ET Friday and ninth-seeded Colby College at 12:15 p.m. ET Saturday.
The four pool winners will advance to the semifinals at 11:15 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. ET Monday. The championship game is set for 5 p.m. ET Tuesday.
“We’re one of the smallest schools in the tournament and our first game is against the No. 1-ranked team in the country,” defenseman Luca Rosato said. “Some of the schools there are huge. We all have faith we can win, and that’s great, but for most of us this tournament will be a learning experience. It will encourage us to do bigger things next year.”
This is Saint Vincent’s second season competing at the D3 level. A year ago, the team came up one win shy of qualifying for nationals. “After our last game, our coach, Brett Martz, said we were one year away,” Rosato said. “He called it. This year, we had a really good freshman class, a lot of skilled players and we were ranked in the top 25 in the country.”
Saint Vincent went 15-3 and ended the regular season at No. 24 in the national D3 rankings. SVC punched its ticket to St. Louis by winning two playoff games to claim the College Hockey East (CHE) M3 championship. In the league title game, Saint Vincent beat Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 3-2, on goals by Logan Connelly, Nate Loughner and Zach Ridilla. It was SVC’s first conference crown since the 1976-77 squad won the Western Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Hockey Association.
“Going [to the national tournament] will create lifetime bonds,” said Mike Ziemianski, who coached SVC from 1999 to 2014 and remains closely connected to the program. “We’ll be the underdogs again and have the opportunity to show the entire country what we have built. When I was coach, we went to ACHA D3 nationals in 2004 and 2005. Those memories and emotions never leave you.”
Other teams in the CHE this past season were Duquesne, Robert Morris, West Virginia, PennWest California, Pitt-Johnstown, Kent State, Akron and Case Western Reserve.
PHOTO: Saint Vincent players (left to right) Conner Fauth, Caden Horton, Luca Rosato, Jacob Holtzman, Michael Ridilla and Zachary Ridilla celebrate with an unidentified friend (front row, center) after winning the College Hockey East MD3 championship belt.
ATTACHMENT: American Collegiate Hockey Association MD3 national tournament logo.