FREDONIA, N.Y. -- The nation's No. 2 ranked NCAA Divsion III team stands between the Fredonia Blue Devils and a return trip to the SUNYAC men's hockey championship game. The Geneseo Knights (21-1-2) are SUNYAC'S top seed and trail only Wisconsin-Stevens Point in this week's USCHO.com and D3Hockey.com rankings.
Fredonia (15-7-4), the No. 5 seed in the conference tournament, have fallen out of the national rankings after a couple of visits there during the regular season. The Blue Devils' PairWise ranking -- a mathematical formula that will be used to determine NCAA Tournament at-large berths -- is No. 19, tied with Amherst, out of 83 Division III teams.
The SUNYAC semifinal -- set for 7 p.m. Saturday at the Ira S. Wilson Ice Arena -- is a rematch of last March's conference championship game, won by host Geneseo, 7-1. Geneseo also won both regular-season meetings this season, 6-1 on Nov. 2 at Steele Hall and 3-1 in the rematch on Jan. 18 at Wilson Arena.
Fredonia has already authored a mild upset this post-season, a 3-2 overtime win Wednesday at No. 4 seed Buffalo State.
"We started the season with an underdog mentality," Fredonia Head Coach
Jeff Meredith said. "It was something we were comfortable with and launched us to a pretty good first half. For a brief period in January, we got away from that mindset and it didn't work out for us. Slowly over the last few weeks we have re-adopted that mentality and we saw it Wednesday night at Buffalo State. Needless to say, we will have to take that attitude to Geneseo. Our guys have been SUNYAC Playoff underdogs in the past, so let's just get on the bus and go play."
Coming into the game on a 20-game winning streak, Geneseo is all over the national leader lists -- No. 1 in scoring margin, No. 1 in fewest points allowed, No. 2 in most points per game, the nation's top two scorers in Conlan Keenan and Andrew Romano, and the top goaltender in Devin McDonald in both goals against and save percentage. Conversely, the Blue Devils are 12-0-3 when they score the first goal, 9-0-2 when they lead after the first period, and 12-0-2 when they lead after two.
Plattsburgh visits Oswego in Saturday's other semifinal. The SUNYAC championship game is March 2 on the home ice of the highest remaining seed.
