Surging Bison eye NCAA tournament berth

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Joe Parello, GoLocal Contributor

Senior Jacob Rinn has been one of the best goalies in all of Division III this year.

Despite a slow start to the conference season, the Nichols College men’s hockey team is in prime position to win its way into the NCAA tournament.

Since beginning ECAC Northeast play with a record of 1-2, the Bison (11-12-2, 9-4-1 ECAC Northeast) have been virtually unstoppable, going 8-1-1 over their last 10 conference games. Keying the Bison turnaround has been senior goalie Jacob Rinn (Warwick, RI), who has been named ECAC Northeast Goalie of the Week the past three weeks, while giving up only 2.4 goals per game in conference play. But Rinn’s impressive .919 save percentage in the conference is also the result of a young defense growing up in front of him.

“Our guys have (now) bought into the principles of defense,” coach Lou Izzi said. “We had so many new guys, and they came here with a lot of ‘junior hockey’ tendencies. We’ve just been able to get them to play at a different level than they were earlier in the year.”

The maturation of the defense has led to the Bison giving up far fewer goals per game. Over their last 10 games, Nichols is giving up less than two goals on average, a sizeable improvement from the 4.5 goals the Bison were allowing the previous 15 games. But defense is not the only improvement. The Bison have also benefitted from, perhaps, the best freshman in all of Division III.

Louie Educate (Chicago, IL) leads Division III in goals with 24, and ranks sixth in points with 38. The talented freshman has teamed with classmate Joe Sposit (Cleveland, OH) to lead the Bison scoring attack. Despite the youth movement at forward, one senior thinks that the entire team is playing with a new found confidence.

“(Our confidence level) is really high right now,” Zach Hendrickson said. “We just think we’re going to win every game now, and I think that’s the big difference. Going into the third period in a tie game, we know we’re just going to get that one goal and get the win.”

The Bison’s hot stretch has earned them the No. 3 spot in the ECAC Northeast tournament, and a home playoff game. Nichols will host Becker Saturday, but their ambitions go farther than simply hosting a tournament contest. The Bison have defeated No. 2 seed Curry and played No. 1 seed Wentworth tough on the road during their recent tear, and know that it will only take three straight wins to get the into the NCAA tournament.

Senior Zach Hendrickson has provided leadership and his 16 points also rank fourth on the team.

The Bison have not been back to the tournament since 2009, as both 2010 and 2011 ended with losses to Becker in the conference tournament. However, both of those losses were on the road, and this year’s Nichols team will get the chance to exact some revenge within the familiar confines of Levy Rink.

“To get that home playoff game, it’s definitely something we worked towards,” Izzi said. “We’ve been playing really well down the stretch, and now we get a home playoff game, so obviously our goal is to take advantage of that.”

Saturday’s game is scheduled to begin in Levy Rink at 2:40 p.m. If the Bison win, they will move on to face No. 2 seed Curry Wednesday the 29th at 7:35 p.m.