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On the Fly, Jan. 29-31

Rumble in Richmond (D3)
Jan. 29
Richmond 4, Catholic 2
Loyola-Maryland 8, George Washington 3
Jan. 30
Loyola-Maryland 6, Catholic 5 (OT)
George Washington 7, Richmond 3
Jan. 31
Catholic 3, George Washington 1
Loyola-Maryland 8, Richmond 1
Champion: Loyola-Maryland

Blue Ridge Hockey Conference (D3)
Old Dominion 8, Salisbury 1
Appalachian State vs. North Carolina-Wilmington (postponed)
William & Mary vs. James Madison (ppd Feb. 20)
Jan. 30
East Carolina vs. Christopher Newport (ppd)
Wake Forest vs. North Carolina-Charlotte (ppd)
Appalachian State vs. North Carolina-Wilmington (ppd)
James Madison at George Mason (ppd)
Salisbury at Virginia Commonwealth (cancelled)
Radford at William & Mary (ppd)

Atlantic Coast Collegiate Hockey League (D2)

Jan. 29

North Carolina 3, Duke 0

South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference (D3)
Jan. 29
Florida 5, Alabama 3
Georgia 7, Mississippi 2
Jan. 30
Florida 12, Alabama 2

Independents and Non-conference Games
Jan. 29
Oklahoma (D1) 4, Liberty (D1) 3
Florida Gulf Coast (D2) 5, William Patterson (D2) 1
Liberty (D3) vs. Wake Forest (BRHC) (cancelled)
Kennesaw State (D2) 12, Life University (D2) 5
Central Florida (D3) 10, South Florida (D3) 1
The Citadel (BRHC) 10, Florida Tech (D3) 1
Virginia Tech (ACCHL) 3, Georgia Tech (D3) 1
Jan. 30
Liberty (D1) 6, Oklahoma (D1) 4
Virginia Tech (ACCHL) 8, Kennesaw State (D2) 0
William Patterson (D2) 8, Florida Gulf Coast (D2) 6
Central Florida (D3) 5, South Florida (D3) 1
Georgia (SECHC) 4, Georgia Tech (D3) 3 ((OT)
The Citadel (BRHC) 8, Florida Tech (D3) 0

Tar Heels Shut Down Rival

     North Carolina goaltender Lyle Baumgarten stopped 34 shots as his Tar Heels snatched an ACCHL victory from Duke Friday night. Brian Coules, Charles Gage and Joe Gates scored for North Carolina. 
     The night before, the Tar Heels prevailed over East Carolina in a special shootout competition between periods of a Carolina Hurricanes game. Coules got the lone goal in the showdown and John Holt shut down the ECU shooters. North Carolina will face North Carolina State, which triumphed over Duke, in the shootout finale in March.
ODU Dominates Salisbury
     Old Dominion got a pair of goals each from Michael Tansey and Tyler Coquelin in defeating Salisbury 8-1 Friday night. ODU goalie Dan Rall made 20 saves, yielding only a first-period goal to Salisbury's Colin Campbell.
Central Florida Wins Big
     Coming off a split with the Division III's top-ranked team, Florida Gulf Coast, the Central Florida Knights exploded for five first-period goals en route to a 10-1 thrashing of South Florida. Matt Heyens and Max Furlong each scored twice for the Knights, while goalie Russell Pittman stopped 20 of the 21 shots he faced. Doug Hill was the lone USF scorer.
Hokies Win Battle of Techs 3-1   
     A pair of third-period goals just 58 seconds apart by Christopher Haake lifted visiting Virginia Tech of the ACCHL to a 3-1 win over Georgia Tech Friday night. The Hokies's Joshua Bennett had staked VT to a short-lived 1-0 lead midway through the first period. Georgia Tech's Zachary Berry, with assists from Jeremy Spafard and Matthew Zaske, countered less than two minutes later for the Yellow Jackets. The win elevated the Hokies, who outshot the Jackets 54-16, to 13-4-3 on the season. Georgia Tech fell to 7-11-2.
No. 2 Knights Complete Sweep of USF
     The Central Florida Knights, No. 2 in the D3 ranking, won for the 21st time Saturday night, riding a pair of goals from Danny Jackson to a 5-1 win over South Florida and a sweep of their two-game weekend set. Rick Merlo scored South Florida's lone goal on a first-period power play. From there, it was all Knights, as Max Furlong, Jackson and Anthony Esposito scored in the second period and Robert Stauffer and Jackson in the third.
Georgia Victimizes GT Again
     Georgia defeated Georgia Tech 4-3 in overtime Saturday night for its third victory over its arch-rival in three games this season, with each win more challenging than the one that preceeded it. The Yellow Jackets scored two goals in a span of 54 seconds late in the third period to rally from a 3-1 deficit and force overtime play. Sean Kavanagh was the Ice dogs' hero, scoring the winner with just six seconds left in the extra session.
     Lee Bosma, Ryan Benson and Michael Gabelman scored the other goals for 14th-ranked Georgia. Zachary Berry, Jerry Spafard and Matthew Zaske were the Yellow Jackets' marksmen.
     The win was the Ice Dogs' second of the weekend. Friday night they stopped visiting Mississippi 7-2 in a South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference contest. Georgia pulled away from Mississippi in the second period on Peter Virk's hat trick and single goals by Aaron Gottfried and Michael Gottfried. Taylor Casey scored the lone Ole Miss goal.
Citadel Finishes Off Florida Tech
     Andrew Winton pocketed a three-goal hat trick, Steven Barton scored twice and goaltender Brian Taptick stopped every Florida Tech shot as The Citadel blasted Florida Tech Saturday for the second night in a row, this time 8-0. The other Citadel scorers were Andrew Powanda, Cameron Mizioch and Justin Menor.

Outdoor Game Pleases; Foes' Skill Level Doesn't

      The ACHA D2 Selects' undefeated six-game romp through Europe at the beginning of 2010 wasn't the first hockey trip overseas for Ryan Kovesdy (left), a Florida Gulf Coast defenseman. As an eighth-grader, the Rocky River, Ohio, native played in a weeklong Red Army tournament in Moscow organized by former Soviet goaltending star Vladislav Tretiak. 
     Still, there were a number of firsts for the 6-1, 215-lb. blueliner, one of four South Region players on the Selects' roster. The others were FGCU teammates Brett Galbraith and Kevin Mixon, and Kennesaw State's Jerry Holden.
     Other than all the new friends he made among his 24 teammates, the highlight of the trip for Kovesdy was the final game, played outdoors in Austria. "That was something I had never experienced before. It was 20 degrees and the fans were there during warmups and stayed to the final buzzer. There was a lot of interest in seeing Americans play," he says.
     Then there was the Selects' first game, played near the summit of a mountain in France. The team rode to the game in a double-deck tour bus. "There were hairpin turns with no guardrails," says Kovesdy. "You could look a thousand feet down." For most of their stay in Europe, the team's base was Geneva, Switzerland. It would travel to and from games either on a tour bus or a train.
     The rinks themselves were a new experience for most of the Selects. Kovesdy says three of them had protective glass only behind the nets. The outdoor rink in Prolognan, France, had chain-link fencing atop its dashers. Advertisements hung from the fencing. In Germany, brown netting substituted for the plexigas we're used to in North America.
     The level of competition the collegians faced in Europe -- the Selects outscored their six opponents 54-10 -- and the opposition's style of play were disappointing to Kovesdy, a sophomore who transferred last fall to FGCU from Bowling Green State University, where he was on the D2 squad. "We had such a skilled team (the Selects). We really could have played a higher division or a professional team," says Kovesdy, noting that in Europe there are five skill-based divisions, with Division I for players with U.S. pro experience and Division 2 being the equivalent of NCAA Division I and ECHL teams. The competition for the Selects was from Divisions III and IV, according Kovesdy.
     The Euros' style of play was all finesse and very little hitting. "For instance, we played a team with the cousins of (former NHLer) Paul Stastny. They had great stickhandling skills but did not like to get hit at all. Germany was the only exception," says Kovesdy. "The others didn't want to play physical . . . If you came out and put on real physical pressure, that would take a toll on them and give you the upperhand all of the game."
     Kovesdy and his 24 Selects teammates were chosen for the team based on their performance in a D2 Showcase. The players and coaches convened in Albany, N.Y., the day after Christmas for three days of practice on an Olympic-size rink before flying to Europe. Next January a team of D3 all-stars will tour Europe.

Next Shift, Jan. 29-31

Rumble in Richmond (D3)
Jan. 29
Richmond vs. Catholic U.
Loyola-Maryland vs. George Washington
Jan. 30
Loyola-Maryland vs. Catholic U.
Richmond vs. George Washington
Jan. 31
George Washington vs. Catholic U.
Richmond vs. Loyola-Maryland
Atlantic Coast Collegiate Hockey Conference (D2)
Jan. 29
North Carolina at Duke
Georgetown at North Carolina State
Jan. 30
Georgetown at Duke
Jan. 31
Georgetown at North Carolina
Blue Ridge Hockey Conference (D3)
Jan. 29
North Carolina-Wilmington at Appalachian State
George Mason at Northern Virginia C.C.
William & Mary at James Madison
Old Dominion at Loyola-Maryland
Jan. 30
North Carolina-Wilmington at Appalachian State
North Carolina-Charlotte at Wake Forest
James Madison at George Mason
William & Mary at Radford
Virginia Commonwealth at Salisbury
Christopher Newport at East Carolina
South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference (D3)
Jan. 29
Alabama at Florida
Mississippi at Georgia
Jan. 30
Alabama at Florida
Mississippi at South Carolina
Independents and Non-conference Games
Jan. 29
Virginia Tech (ACCHL) at Georgia (SECHC)
William Patterson U. at Florida Gulf Coast (D3)
Florida State (D3) at Louisiana State (SECHC)
Vanderbilt (SECHC) at Northern Kentucky (D3)
Indiana (D1) at Eastern Kentucky
Arkansas (SECHC) at Southern Methodist
Kentucky (D2) at Dayton
The Citadel (BRHC) at Florida Tech (D3)
Wake Forest (BRHC) at Liberty (D3)
Liberty (D2) at East Carolina (BRHC)
South Florida (D3) at Central Florida (D3)
Oklahoma at Liberty (D1)
Life University (D2) at Kennesaw State (D2)
Jan. 30 
Virginia Tech (ACCHL) at Kennesaw State
William Patterson U. at Florida Gulf Coast (D3)
Florida State (D3) at Louisiana State (SECHC)
Georgia Tech (D3) at Georgia (SECHC)
Vanderbilt (SECHC) at Northern Kentucky (D3)
Liberty (D3) at Roanoke College
Eastern Kentucky at Indiana (D1)
Arkansas (SECHC) at Southern Methodist
Dayton at Kentucky (D2)
The Citadel (BRHC) at Florida Tech (D3)
North Carolina State (ACCHL) at Liberty (D2)
South Florida (D3) at Central Florida (D3)
Oklahoma at Liberty (D1)

Players of Week: Goalies Stand Tall, Even in Defeat

     HockeyYall.com was so impressed with the performances of three goaltenders this past weekend -- two of them in losing causes -- that we created a fifth, one-time Player of the Week honor for goalies to go with those for the three conferences and the independent teams in the ACHA's South Region.
     The Goalie of the Week is Jack Merriman, a freshman at Richmond, ranked 11th among D3 teams. Merriman made 43 saves in Friday night's 7-1 win over No. 13 George Washington and 37 more Saturday night against G.W., including a cross-crease kick save in the final minute to preserve Richmond's 3-2 win. Both games were important Blue Ridge Hockey Conference Colonial Division contests.
     Richmond coach Kevin Silver said Merriman made a number of spectacular stops Friday night and helped the Spyders fend off G.W. in the second period when it had a two-man advantage for a full two minutes.
     The other goaltender nominees were Kristian Skou of Misssissippi, whose team lost 7-1 to No. 15 Alabama Saturday night, and Tom Pettit, the losing goalie in North Carolina-Charlotte's 6-3 decision Friday night over Johnson & Wales. Skou made a whopping 68 saves in the South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference game. Pettit stopped 62 of the 68 shots NC-C threw at him in their Blue Ridge Hockey Conference game.
     The other Players of the Week are:
     Atlantic Coast Collegiate Hockey League -- Dan Masuilis of North Carolina State had a hat trick and two assists and his team's first shootout goal in a 7-6 win over North Carolina Friday night.
     The other ACCHL nominees were Virginia Tech defenseman Mitch Clark, who scored the winner in a 5-4 victory over No. 5 Clemson and scored once in the Hokies' Saturday night loss to Temple, and Kenny Haisfeld, who notched two goals in his North Carolina team's 7-6 shootout loss to North Carolina State.
     Blue Ridge Hockey Conference -- Appalachian State's Michael Skelton recorded a hat trick in each of the Mountaineers' wins, 9-2 over Radford in a BRHC matchup and 9-3 over Liberty's D3 team.
     The BRHC's other non-goalie nominees were Scott Johnson of Northern Virginia Community College, who collected five points on a goal and four helpers in a 9-5 BRHC loss to Virginia Commonwealth, and James Madison's Mitch Allen, who scored his 15th goal of the season and set up two teammates for scores in two wins over the Virginia Military Institute.
     South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference -- Louisiana State freshman Steven Musso had seven goals and six assists in the Tigers' 5-3 loss to Georgia and 9-3 and 8-3 victories over Emory and South Carolina, respectively. Musso now has 12 goals and eight assists in five games since joining LSU's team in January.
     Independents -- Clemson's leading scorer, Dave Werner had a goal and two assists in Clemson's 5-4 loss to the Virginia Tech and four goals and two assists in his team's 12-0 shellacking of Virginia of the ACCHL.
     

Classic's Got It; D3 South Closing In on It

     This year's Savannah Tire Hockey Classic signaled that the ACHA's D3 South Region is well on the way to competitive balance, or parity as they say in the NHL. The event's winner, Florida, was its fourth different Thrasher Cup champion in four years. And two of the four games were decided by one goal and the others by two, including Georgia's empty-net goal in a 5-3 win Saturday night over Georgia Tech.
     Until 2008, Georgia and Georgia Tech dominated the four-team Classic, which attracts upwards of 9,500 fans annually. Between them, they won the first nine championships. Florida State scored a break-through title in '08, followed by the Gators' success this year.
     Prior to the Classic, John Hoos, coach of now No. 8-ranked Georgia, said any of the four teams could take the Thrasher Cup and noted that then unranked Florida definitely was one of the South Region's top teams even though it has not been ranked among them. Florida has since been ranked 14th.
     "If you look at the top 15 in the South, you've got a couple teams (Florida Gulf Coast and Central Florida) that have separated themselves from the rest," Hoos said after Saturday's game. "But among the other 13 teams, anybody can beat anybody."
     A team's ranking is significant because only the top 10 teams have a chance to go to the D3 National Tournament, this year hosted by FGCU in Estero, Fla. The top two teams in the final ranking, due out Feb. 12, will automatically earn berths at nationals. The next eight teams qualify for February's South Regional Tournament in Pelham, Ala, with the top two teams earning a trip to nationals.

New D3 Ranking: No Change at the Top

     Florida Gulf Coast, Central Florida and Loyola-Maryland remain 1-2-3 in the latest ranking of ACHA Division III South Region teams, announced today. The big winners were Georgia, East Carolina and Florida. The Ice Dogs (9-9-0 on the season) climbed all the way from 14th to eighth, putting them in position to secure a berth in next month's regional tournament in Pelham, Ala.
     Brand new to the top 15 are a pair of tournament winners: East Carolina (11-6-0), the winner of last weekend's Stephen Russell Memorial Tournament, and Florida (8-4-0), which won its first Savnnah Tire Hockey Classic in 12 tries. The Gators have won eight games in a row since dropping their first four.
     The biggest losers were Appalachian State (8-5-0) and Christopher Newport (6-6-2), which tumbled out of the ranking, and Alabama (11-5-2), which dropped from ninth to 15th, and Florida Atlantic (9-10-1), which fell from seventh to 12th.
     The top 15 are split evenly among the Blue Ridge Hockey Conference and the South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference.
     Central Florida (16-6-0) has a chance this weekend to not only solidify its hold on one of the automatic regional slots that go to the top two teams in the final ranking but also close in on the top spot when it hosts No. 1 FGCU (21-1-2). 

       ACHA Division III South Ranking
                    Through Jan. 17

1. Florida Gulf Coast (21-1-2) 7 points
2. Central Florida (16-6-0) 15 pts.
3. Loyola-Maryland (18-3-1) 20 pts.
4. Arkansas (16-4-0) 29 pts.
5. Clemson (10-4-0) 37 pts.
6. South Florida (8-9-1) 47 pts.
7. Tennessee (8-8-2) 50 pts.
8. Georgia (9-9-0) 73 pts.
9. East Carolina (11-6-0) 77 pts.
10. Salisbury (8-7-1) 79 pts.
11. Richmond (8-5-0) 81 pts.
12. Florida Atlantic (9-10-1) 86 pts.
13. George Washington (9-3-0) 90 pts.
14. Florida (8-4-0) 90 pts.
15. Alabama (11-5-2) 93 pts.