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March 9, 2009

NCAA includes Cardinal women

By COURTNEY LEWIS

PLATTSBURGH — Plattsburgh State will get a chance to play for a third straight national title.

The Cardinals were the first team announced when the 2009 Division III Women's Ice Hockey Championship field was revealed during a webcast Monday morning. They'll travel to Amherst for a quarterfinal contest at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

The Cardinals had to wait anxiously for an at-large bid after Elmira claimed the ECAC West's automatic berth on Sunday.

"Definitely, I was relieved to know that we were in," Plattsburgh State coach Kevin Houle said. "The more I thought about it, the more I thought we certainly deserved to be in, and thankfully the committee saw it the same way."

Middlebury received a quarterfinal bye and will host the semifinals and final March 20-21. In the other quarterfinal matchups, Elmira hosts Norwich and Gustavus Adolphus entertains Wisconsin-River Falls.

The selections and pairings are made by the NCAA Division III Women's Ice Hockey Committee. Five conferences have automatic bids. The Championship Handbook lists the primary criteria for the two at-large selections as: winning percentage against ranked opponents, strength of schedule versus regional competition, in-region head-to-head results, results against common regional opponents and in-region results against regionally ranked teams. The secondary criteria involve out-of-region play.

Amherst (21-5) received the other at-large bid. RIT (21-3-2), which lost to Plattsburgh State in the ECAC West Tournament semifinals, was left out.

"I would think they probably compared us, RIT and Amherst pretty closely," Houle said. "I think obviously the win against RIT was huge, having a head-to-head 2-1 record against them. It was probably a tough decision, and it probably took quite a bit of time to come to that conclusion."

Plattsburgh State hosted the championship weekend the last three years. The Cardinals, who beat Middlebury in the 2007 title game and Manhattanville last year, are trying to become the second team to win three straight NCAA championships. Middlebury won from 2004-06.

Plattsburgh State's last road game in the NCAA playoffs was in 2005.

The Cardinals beat Amherst 3-1 on the road Jan. 16 in their only meeting this season. The Lord Jeffs were ranked one spot ahead of Plattsburgh State in the last NCAA Division III Regional Rankings, and both teams lost in their conference championship games Sunday.

"I expected to travel, but now if you look at who we're playing, I think that it was a close call who was the higher seed," Houle said. "It was probably really hard to rank. I think when you match up Amherst and Plattsburgh, it was probably tight, and obviously the committee put them ahead of us."

Amherst and Plattsburgh State have met once in the postseason, in the 2007 semifinals at Stafford Ice Arena, and the Cardinals won 3-2.

The Cardinals were riding a 13-game unbeaten streak before they fell to Elmira, 3-0, in the ECAC West Tournament final. They're 9-4 all-time in the NCAA tournament.

The players "are all relieved and excited to still be alive here, and I think (Sunday's) game is already behind us," Houle said. "We have to learn from certain things from that game, but everybody's ready to move forward and excited to play Amherst."

2009 Division III Women's Ice Hockey Championship

Quarterfinals - March 14

Plattsburgh State (22-4-2) at Amherst (21-5), 1:30 p.m.

Norwich (19-8-1) at Elmira (22-4-1), 3 p.m.

Wisconsin-River Falls (19-5-3) at Gustavus Adolphus (21-1-4), 2 p.m. C.S.T.

Semifinals - March 20 at Middlebury

Norwich/Elmira vs. UWRF/Gustavus Adolphus, 3:30 p.m.

Plattsburgh State/Amherst vs. Middlebury (19-3-4), 7 p.m.

March 21 at Middlebury

Third-place game, 3:30 p.m.

Championship game, 7 p.m.

E-mail Courtney Lewis at: clewis@pressrepublican.com

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