Courtesy Colby Sports Information

Box Score

WATERVILLE, Maine - The Trinity College men's hockey team is headed to the NCAA Tournament after winning the program's second NESCAC Men's Ice Hockey Championship with a 3-2 double overtime victory over Middlebury College on Sunday at Colby College's Alfond Rink. The Bantams (15-10-2) came into the conference tournament as the sixth seed and beat seeds one, two, and three to claim their first title since 2003.

Trinity started the tourney with a win over third-seeded Bowdoin and then knocked off top-seeded Colby by a 2-1 score on Saturday. Middlebury (18-7-2) came into the tourney as the second seed.

Joshua Rich (Palmyra, Pa.) scored 7:07 into the second overtime off assists from Matthew Crum (Clearwater, Fla.) and Riley Hicks (Calgary, Alberta). Rich came around the net and his shot was able to sneak past Middlebury goalie Ross Cherry (Basking Ridge, N.J.) to set off a wild Trinity celebration.

Trinity first-year goalie Wesley Vesprini (Lexington, Mass.), who came up big time and time again in the Colby semifinal win, was up to the task for a second straight day with 33 saves. He made a number of key stops, including two dandy glove saves in the final two minutes of regulation.

Middlebury led twice in the game and took a 1-0 lead at 7:35 of the first period when Scott Bartlett ripped a blast by Vesprini after taking a pass while streaking hard up the center of the ice.

Rich got his first goal of the game at 11:56 of the opening period for Trinity. His shot from a bad angle on the right side trickled past Cherry, who had appeared to lose his stick on the play, and went over the goal line.

The Panthers went up 2-1 after the first period when Mason Graddock tallied at 13:16.

Vesprini kept Middlebury off the scoreboard from that point and the Bantams tied the game at 11:20 of the second period when Christopher Powers (Lynnfield, Mass.), who had an assist on the first Trinity goal, tallied unassisted.

Cherry also was strong in the nets with 37 saves for Middlebury, which will await a possible at-large bid to the NCAA tourney.

The Panthers were going after their fifth straight NESCAC title and eighth in nine years, but Trinity's roll in the playoffs continued. The Bantams took a 4-2 victory at Middlebury in the 2003 title game when they entered as the second seed.

2008 NESCAC MEN’S ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, March 1 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Colby 4, No. 8 Wesleyan 1
at No. 2 Middlebury 6, No. 7 Williams 0
No. 6 Trinity 5, at No. 3 Bowdoin 2
at No. 4 Amherst 3, No. 5 Connecticut College 2 - OT

Semifinals - Saturday, March 8 at No. 1 Colby
No. 6 Trinity 2, at No. 1 Colby 1
No. 2 Middlebury 2, vs. No. 4 Amherst 1

Championship - Sunday, March 9
No. 6 Trinity 3, No. 2 Middlebury 2 - 2OT 

2008 NESCAC MEN'S ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, March 1
Time TBA at Higher Seeds
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, March 8
at Highest Remaining Seed
1:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, March 9
1:00 p.m.

Format
The top 8 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Men's Ice Hockey Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Saturday, March 1, 2008 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Format if Men and Women are Playing at the Same Site
Preliminary Round
If both a men's and a women's first round game are being played at the same site, both games shall be played on Saturday with scheduled start times of 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.  In odd years the men's game will be played first and in even years the women's game will be played first.

Semifinal and Championship Round
If both the men's and women's semifinals and finals are being played at the same site, one of the championships will be conducted Friday evening and Saturday evening.  As the men's NCAA championship tournament starts earlier than the women's championship, the men's games will be played on Friday/Saturday (with game times of 4:00 p.m./7:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.) with the women's games played Saturday/Sunday (with game times of 12:30 p.m./3:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.).

Seeding
Teams will be seeded based on games scheduled in conjunction with ECAC East. The top four seeds will host quarterfinal games with the one seed drawing the 8th seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed. The highest remaining seed after quarterfinal action will host both the semifinal and final rounds.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Sunday, February 24.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.