Middlebury Wins 2011 Women's Ice Hockey Championship

Courtesy Middlebury Athletic Communications

Box Score

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Middlebury won its sixth NESCAC Women's Ice Hockey Championship as the Panthers (21-4-1) held off a late flurry by Amherst to pick up a 4-3 win in the title game played in Kenyon Arena. The Panthers receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and will learn their fate when the selections are announced on Monday. The Jeffs fall to 19-6-2 with the loss and will hope for an at-large bid.

Middlebury took a 1-0 lead 4:27 into the game with a power play goal. Madeline Joyce netted her fifth of the season, finishing off a flurry of shots in front.

The Panthers were awarded a penalty shot at the 3 :34 mark of the second period, after a delay of game penalty on the Jeffs. Maggie Melberg took the shot and was denied by Caroline Hu with a pad save on her backhander. Amherst tied the game at 1-1 at the 9:01 mark with a power play tally of their own. Geneva Lloyd made a nice pass from behind the net to Ellen Swiontkowski in front, for her 10th of the year.

Middlebury scored three goals in a 5:04 span in the second period to take a commanding 4-1 advantage. Maggie Melberg won a face-off back to Heather Marrison at the left point, with her shot getting past a screened Hu for the 2-1 lead at 13:58. Sara Uglade intercepted a pass and scored from the right side with a wrister into the top left corner of the net for her 12th of the season. Joyce found a cutting Maggie Woodward, who scored her fifth of the season from her knees to make it a 4-1 game with 58 seconds left in the second.

Amherst made it a two-goal game at 11:38 of the third, when Stephanie Clegg scored from the left face-off dot. The Jeffs cut the lead to 4-3 with 4:10 remaining, as Lloyd scored on her third attempt after her first two shots were denied by Alexi Bloom on the power play. Amherst kept coming with pressure, going on a power play with just 56 seconds left to play. The Jeffs pulled Hu moments later, looking for a six-on-four goal to tie the game. Middlebury held strong, giving up just one shot on goal late as the Panthers held on for the victory.

Amherst held a slight 25-24 shots advantage in the game, with Bloom making 22 saves and Hu stopping 20.

2011 NESCAC WOMEN'S ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, Feb. 26 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Middlebury 6, No. 8 Williams 2
at No. 2 Amherst 5, No. 7 Colby 0
at No. 3 Trinity 3, No. 6 Hamilton 1
at No. 4 Bowdoin 2, No. 5 Connecticut College 1

Semifinals - Saturday, March 5 at Highest Remaining Seed
at No. 1 Middlebury 4, No. 4 Bowdoin 0
No. 2 Amherst 4, No. 3 Trinity 3 - OT

Championship - Sunday, March 6
at No. 1 Middlebury 4, No. 2 Amherst 3

2011 NESCAC WOMEN'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 5
2:00 p.m.

Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Women'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
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of double round robin play. 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 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.