Bowdoin Downs Williams 5-2 in NESCAC Final

Courtesy Bowdoin/Williams Sports Information

(Note: Bowdoin vacated the NESCAC Men's Ice Hockey Championship following the tournament due to a violation of institutional policy. No conference champion was declared for 2010-11; results of the tournament were not altered.)

Box Score

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The Bowdoin College men's ice hockey team earned a 5-2 victory at Williams in the NESCAC title game Saturday afternoon. The Polar Bears (18-7-1) are victorious for the first time in five trips to the conference championship game and earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The complete bracket will be released on Monday morning.

Bowdoin scored twice in a 66-second span early in the first period and never trailed, getting outstanding play from first-year netminder Steve Messina, who posted a career-high 47 saves. Five different Polar Bears found the back of the net in the victory. Williams likely ends their year with a record of 16-8-3.

The game's first score came when Bowdoin's Bryan Rosata played a puck in front to Robert Toczylowski whose shot was stopped by Williams goalie Ryan Purdy, but cleaned up by Nick Wetzel at 5:15. The goal was Wetzel's first of the year. Bowdoin doubled their lead at 6:21 when Jeff Fanning dug the puck off the boards behind Purdy and connected with Jordan Lalor also on the left wing. The Lalor shot bounced off Purdy's pads and Daniel Weiniger deposited it into the twine for a 2-0 advantage.

At 14:04 the Ephs Matt Masucci fired a shot on Bowdoin's Steve Messina that was stopped, but sent in again to the net by Mike Broft. Eric Rubino then skated in to collect Broft's attempt and flipped it over Messina's left shoulder giving the Ephs a power play tally. With 17:40 gone in the period the Polar Bears escaped a wild fray in front of the Bowdoin goal. Goalie Steve Messina was down after stretching to make a save and several Eph attempts were unsuccessful bouncing off Messina's pads and body with the last Eph effort sailing over the net and off the boards for the Polar Bear defense to clear away. Messina stopped 19 shots in the opening frame to maintain the one-goal lead.

The Polar Bears increased their lead 4:31 into the second stanza when Jay Livermore hit Toczylowski behind the net and he fed Aaron O'Callahan who skated in from Purdy's left across the front of the net to backhand one under the pads of Purdy to make it 3-1. Bowdoin cemented their lead with 4:30 left in the frame when first-year Ollie Koo positioned himself in front of the goal 30 feet out one-timed a pass from Rob MacGregor to give the visitors a 4-1 lead heading into the third.

The Ephs came out flying and got one of the goals back just 2:55 into the final period when John Wickman flipped home a rebound off an Eric Rubio shot from a tough angle to Messina's left side. Bowdoin settled down shortly after, and Williams could not build on the brief rally. The Polar Bears sealed their first NESCAC crown at 17:55 when Jeff Fanning knocked home the rebound off a Daniel Weiniger shot to make it 5-2 Bowdoin.

The NCAA Tournament trip will be the second straight for the Polar Bears and fourth overall. The Division III bracket will be announced on NCAA.com on Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. The championship is the first for Bowdoin since the Polar Bears won the 1993 ECAC Championship.

Bowdoin had lost in its four previous trips to the NESCAC Championship game - all to Middlebury - including three times by a single goal.

"The fact that we've been in the finals five of the last seven years is a real credit to these kids," according to head coach Terry Meagher.

"Today our total game was good all the way around, including special teams. Timing is key -- we played as perfect a hockey game as we could play."

2011 NESCAC MEN'S ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, Feb. 26 at Higher Seeds
No. 8 Wesleyan 5, at No. 1 Hamilton 2
at No. 2 Williams 4, No. 7 Trinity 3
No. 6 Colby 2, at No. 3 Middlebury 1
No. 5 Bowdoin 4, at No. 4 Amherst 3 - OT

Semifinals - Saturday, March 5 at Williams
at No. 2 Williams 3, No. 8 Wesleyan 2 - OT
vs. No. 5 Bowdoin 3, No. 6 Colby 1

Championship - Sunday, March 6
No. 5 Bowdoin 5, at No. 2 Williams 2

2011 NESCAC MEN'S ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, Feb. 26
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 5
at Highest Remaining Seed
1:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, March 6
2:00 p.m.

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Men's Ice Hockey Championship. First round games will be conducted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, March 5 and Sunday, March 6, 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 Saturday, February 19.

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.