CCHA Goaltenders dominate the NCAA’s national ranking in save pct.
Central Collegiate Hockey Association goaltenders have gotten comfortable taking up three out of five slots in the National Collegiate Athletic Association top five in save percentage (save pct.).
Bowling Green’s Christian Stoever (.948) secured the top spot followed by Augustana’s Josh Kotai (.945)in second with Minnesota State’s Alex Tacy placed fourth (.939). With Kotai’s placement and his 1-0-1 record against Bowling Green, he received the title of CCHA’s goalie of the week.
Newly ranked Augustana celebrates with a weekend sweeping of Lake Superior
The Augustana University Vikings are making noise after this weekend’s sweep against the Lake Superior Lakers. After earning their first national ranking in program history following the weekend sweep against Bowling Green the Vikings decided to celebrate with another sweep.
Seems fitting for the now #19 Vikings as they’ve been on a hot streak this tail-end of the season. With this sweep, they secured the top spot in the CCHA standings. Facing the now second-place Minnesota State this upcoming weekend, this match-up will be huge when determining the regular season champions.
Ferris State at Bemidji State: Defenseman of the week vs Forward of the week
The Bulldogs stunned the Beavers with two multi-goal games for the Bulldogs. Both teams have a player of the week on their roster and similar spots in the standings the stunning 5-1 victory for game one was not expected to say the least.
It was a dominating performance for the Bulldogs with forward Cole Burtch winning a game-high of 11 face-offs earning a 75% success rate. Although the Beavers did have a chance to redeem themselves the following night after tying the game 1-1 in the second period, an empty-net goal made by forward Gavin Best sealed the deal.
Now Bemidji State is hoping Northern Michigan is swept by Lake Superior State to further help their playoff hopes. All it will take is three wins for the Bobcats and they’ll be in.
Back-and-forth victories between in-state rivals Tommies and Mavericks
After a split weekend in split venues, the #15 Mavericks have fallen from first to second in the CCHA standings with Augustana claiming the top spot once again.
Both games have just one point differential and going into overtime on Saturday night, in-state rivalries never fail to disappoint. With goaltender Aaron Trotter recording the 2,000th save of his career, Forward Jake Braccini recording his career-best seventh goal of the season, and even some overtime action the comeback victory for the Tommies was a slight upset, to say the least.
However, Sunday night was a different story. Minnesota State had dominated the entire game leaving little to no chances for the Tommies to bounce back like they did the previous night.
Although Minnesota State did redeem themselves, like I said earlier, they still fell to second in the standings after being comfortable in the top spot for almost the entire regular season. Now the Mavericks will have to sweep the Augustana Vikings to have the regular season champion title back in their grasp.
Bowling Green bounces back against the Wildcats
The Falcons seemed to have faltered last weekend after the Augustana sweep at home but, as expected, they were able to sweep Northern Michigan further securing the fourth seed and possible home-ice advantage.
With a more light schedule in this last month of the regular season, home-ice advantage looks doable for the Falcons.
