BETWEEN THE PIPES

Gustavus in the first round?

Posted on Mar 06, 2009

By the looks of it the UW-River Falls women’s hockey team will be playing No. Gustavus Adolphus College (Minn.) in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

The Gusties won the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) playoff title on Wednesday 3-0 against the University of St. Thomas (Minn.).

For the third consecutive season Gustavus went undefeated in the MIAC and have won five the last regular season titles to go along with five straight playoff championships.

Falcons coach Joe Cranston said he believes Gustavus will not receive the No. 1 seed in the NCAA’s as it will go to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

RIT plays its conference final this weekend.

Gustavus, similar to UWRF, has a lot of consistent goal scorers. None of them throw up huge numbers, but each line is able to score, which will make for interesting line matchups.

Prior to the season, Gustavus did not have a single goalie on its roster with college hockey experience. Emily Klatt and Danielle Justice, both first years, have taken the reigns and have compiled the MIAC’s best records and have allowed a total of 11 goals in 18 games. Not too shabby.

The Gusties only loss of the year was to Adrian College (Mich.) in its season opener, a 2-1 overtime loss. Since then, a 26 game unbeaten streak.

Adrian swept UWRF in a two game series in January, the only time this season the Falcons lost consecutive games.

This is all assumption right now, but it sounds like its a lock that the two will play next week in St. Peter, Minn.

The NCAA does not typically make teams travel a long ways for the first round of the tournament, so it schedules games regionally.

On Monday the NCAA will release the full Div. III women’s hockey bracket. A preview of UWRF’s game will be in the paper next Friday.