CP Sports B5sports editor brian cremo ▪friday, march 4, 2011 ▪ sports@cardinalpointsonline.com

Celebrating 10 years since the Plattsburgh State men’s hockey team’s 2001 NCAA national championship crown

2001 SUNYAC Championship game — March 4, 2001PLATTSBURGH STATE 5, POTSDAM 1

Derrick Shaw: 2 goals, 1 assistBrendon Hodge: 4 assists

Ryan Wilson: 1 assistNiklas Sundberg: 30 Saves

MHKY: NCAA berth in PSUC’s sightsFrom Page One

“When you play on the road, there’s no pressure at all,” Meredith said. “After all, they’re the home team and they’re supposed to win.”

In 2007, though, that was not the case. After back-to-back six-plus goal wins in the SUNYAC tournament, PSUC fell to Fredonia in the cham-pionship game 6-4 at home. That loss still affects Emery four years later.

“They came in and beat us and danced on our home ice with the trophy,” Emery said. “That hurt me a great deal.”

To prevent a repeat of that outcome, Emery said the Cards will need to maintain the strong team defense that has stymied opposing skat-ers. He said the best way to do this is by playing aggres-sive offense and keeping the puck in PSUC’s offensive zone as long as possible. Through two games, the Cards have scored seven goals on 81 shots.

“We have to get the puck in deep,” Emery said. “Our forwards have done a good job chas-ing down the puck and getting scoring chances.”

Forward Ryan Craig is PSUC’s lead-ing scorer through two games. Craig’s four goals, including three tallies against Morrisville and the game-winner at Geneseo, have pow-ered the Cards.

“It’s really just been a result of my line mates,” Craig said. “Eric (Satim) wins those battles

down low and gets the puck up for us to shoot.”

Craig’s line mates are Satim and Nick Jensen. Satim leads the team with 22 assists while Jensen leads all freshmen with eight goals.

Countering this forward line is Fredonia’s third line of Ben Waldman, Mat Hehr and Mitch Kulikoski. Through two games, Wald-man has scored four of the team’s five goals. He also

provided the overtime goal against Oswego with a pass

from Hehr. During the regu-lar season, Waldman scored just seven goals on a team that has four players with 10 or more goals.

“I’m not really sure what it is that’s been working so well for me,” Waldman said. “I’ve finally just been getting those bounces. A lot of it also has to do with the other guys on my line.”

Waldman also said that while the offense is scoring goals, Fredonia’s defense is going to win Saturday’s game. A big part of the Blue Devil defense is goalie Mark Friesen. The freshman net-minder has allowed just three goals on 72 shots in two games. Meredith and

Waldman both said that Fri-esen’s presence reaches be-yond that of just a guy who stops pucks.

“You’re able to play a little different with a guy like him in net,” Meredith said. “He

does things in net I haven’t seen in the past. Mark’s just done a great job and he’s the calmest, most laid back goalie I’ve coached in a long time.”

Meredith has coached the

Blue Devils for 22 season.Like any other game, PSUC

just focuses on what it has to do to score. Craig added that the Cards are not read-ing much into Friesen’s per-formance so far. Continuous offensive pressure, Craig said, has kept the opposi-tion off-balance. The success of PSUC’s four forward lines helps keep players rested too.

“As a team, we’re really well conditioned,” Craig said. “Late in the third period, or overtime like with us, other teams really only have two or three lines that can sus-tain pressure. We have an ad-vantage because we can roll all four lines and any of those guys can score.”

Gregg Twergo/Cardinal PointsPSUC’s Dan Sliasis passes the puck to Nick Jensen waiting in the slot against Morrisville, Feb. 23 at Stafford Ice Arena. Jensen picked up three assists in the Cards’ 4-3 SUNYAC quarterfinal win. Jensen leads PSUC freshmen in scoring with eight goals and 14 assists.

WHKY: Seniors looking for first ECACW crownFrom Page One

“Game one” features two of the top 15 offensive teams in Division III women’s hock-ey and two players tied for eleventh in overall scoring for Division III.

PSUC forward Steph Moon and Neumann forward Jes-sica Schroeder both led their teams in offensive produc-tion this season with 33 points each. But both teams know a total team effort, not individual players, will make a difference on Saturday.

“I think all around this year our team has had a lot of different people putting the puck in the net and con-tributing,” forward Teal Gove said. “And I think that has led to a lot of our success.”

Neumann head coach Casey Handrahan said he will need all of his players to contribute if they want to beat a team like PSUC.

“We need everybody to bring their “A” game.”

In November, the Lady Cards picked up two wins against Neumann.

But Houle said both teams have most likely changed quite a bit from those open-ing conference games, and PSUC will focus on their own game.

“We know they have some very good players on their

team, and we will take that into consideration,” Houle said. “But we just want to more or less concentrate on what we do.”

Handrahan shared the same thoughts.

“We don’t want to look at the beast that Plattsburgh is, just execute what we need to do,” Handrahan said.

As far as execution, Han-drahan said it is a matter of not letting PSUC goaltender Mandy Mackrell see the puck and keeping the game simple if his team is going to beat

No. 4 in the country. Mackrell posted 26 saves

and only allowed one goal in two games against the Knights this sea-son. Mackrell was also named ECAC West Goalie of the Year for a second straight season, last week.

PSUC also has some recent history on its side in addition to the conference’s top goal-tender. Both games against the Knights came on the road

this season and the Lady Cards will be hitting the road again this weekend to play in

Rochester. “I think some-

times it’s a good thing to be on the road,” Houle said. “I don’t think it (play-ing in Rochester) is an issue.”

No matter where the game is played, no one needs to re-

mind the Lady Cards that if they don’t win they won’t get another shot at an ECAC

West title for at least one more season.

Gove said it is important for the Lady Cards not to get ahead of themselves this weekend and to focus only on Neumann because that may have contributed to nerves in the past.

Moon is a senior and cap-tain and has been to the playoffs before, so she knows what to expect.

She said it is important for the Lady Cards to get the nerves out early and then re-lax, even though it could be the last game they play.

And while the risk is great, the reward may be greater. A win this weekend would mean a chance to play for this team’s first ECAC West title.

The last time PSUC cap-tured an ECAC West crown was during the 2006-2007 season, one year before this year’s senior class came to school.

Moon said the team is constantly reminded of what last year’s loss to Elmi-ra felt like.

The seniors on this year’s team know that without win-ning this game they won’t get a shot at playing for the elu-sive crown, which is certain-ly one of the top prizes.

“It has never happened for us before,” Moon said. “So it is a ‘needs to be done’ kind of thing.”

PSUC will find out if 60 minutes is enough time to clinch a berth in the finals at 7 p.m. Saturday in Rochester

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SUNYACChampionship

OPPONENT BREAKDOWN

Gregg Twergor/Cardinal PointsBrittany Meade battles for the puck in a game against Utica’s Rebecca Heim, Sunday Feb. 20. She had a goal and two assists in the victory. PSUC plays Neumann Saturday.

Plattsburgh

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ECAC WestSemifinals

OPPONENT BREAKDOWN

Meredith

Emery

DiJulio