Gustavus women to national title game.

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The Gusties defeated Plattsburgh State 3-2 in an epic double OT thriller this afternoon to advance to their second national championship game in a row. They lost the title game in OT a year ago. Championship is Sunday vs either Hamilton or Amherst.

 

The Gusties defeated Plattsburgh State 3-2 in an epic double OT thriller this afternoon to advance to their second national championship game in a row. They lost the title game in OT a year ago. Championship is Sunday vs either Hamilton or Amherst.

Sweet. 3 Minnesota teams win the title this year. Gustavus, and both U teams.
 

Gustavus is Division III, to clarify. Congrats on the great season!

The Division I WCHA Minnesota women's hockey teams are Minnesota, UMD, St Cloud State, Minnesota State, St Thomas, and Bemidji State.


Also in the WCHA are Wisconsin and Ohio State.

And then the East Coast has top women's hockey on the ECAC (Yale, Colgate, Quinnipiac, Harvard, Clarkson, etc) and Hockey East (Northeastern, Etc) plus some lessor conferences.
 

After the two OT thriller in the semi final on Friday, Gustavus followed that up with a THREE OT win over host Amherst Sunday afternoon in the national championship game.

The Gusties took a 1-0 lead late into the game before Amherst scored the tying goal with their goalie pulled and a minute left. It took two more full OT’s and then a couple more minutes into the third ot before the game finally ended with a GAC goal. 2-1 final.

Gustavus is the first midwestern team to ever win the women’s D3 national championship. The deck is annually stacked in favor of eastern teams but that is a story for a different day.
 
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After the two OT thriller in the semi final on Friday, Gustavus followed that up with a THREE OT win over host Amherst this afternoon in the national championship game.

The Gusties took a 1-0 lead late into the game before Amherst scored the tying goal with their goalie pulled and a minute left. It took two more full OT’s and then a couple more minutes into the third ot before the game finally ended with a GAC goal. 2-1 final.

Gustavus is the first midwestern team to ever win the women’s D3 national championship. The deck is annually stacked in favor of eastern teams but that is a story for a different day.

Congrats!!
 


After the two OT thriller in the semi final on Friday, Gustavus followed that up with a THREE OT win over host Amherst this afternoon in the national championship game.

The Gusties took a 1-0 lead late into the game before Amherst scored the tying goal with their goalie pulled and a minute left. It took two more full OT’s and then a couple more minutes into the third ot before the game finally ended with a GAC goal. 2-1 final.

Gustavus is the first midwestern team to ever win the women’s D3 national championship. The deck is annually stacked in favor of eastern teams but that is a story for a different day.
That's great! I would like to hear the story of the deck stacking in favor of eastern teams. I don't follow DIII hockey at all. Is that assessment for both men and women?
 

That's great! I would like to hear the story of the deck stacking in favor of eastern teams. I don't follow DIII hockey at all. Is that assessment for both men and women?
Gustavus lost in the national championship game in OT last year. They returned pretty much the entire team and spent most of this season ranked #1 in the polls (no lower than #2). They have a cross conference rivalry with Wisconsin River Falls and played 3 tight games with them during the regular season (losing 2 of them). Meanwhile River Falls took a trip out east and beat at least two of the traditional eastern powers on their own ice. So, the only time GAC wasn’t ranked #1 this year, River Falls was moved up to #1 mid season.

But in D3, under the described reason “saving money” - they supposedly try to reduce travel. So when the 11 team national tourney seedings were announced, GAC got #4 and RF got #5! No other MIAC or WIAC teams were given at large bids. In fact, they were the only two schools located outside of the eastern time zone. Meanwhile, one of the eastern conferences was awarded FOUR bids (champ and three at-large). Unfortunate Augsburg (very good team this season) essentially missed out on an at large bid thanks to their zip code.

The top remaining seed gets to host the frozen four. So, it was no accident putting #1 ranked GAC in the 4 seed. There was no chance all three schools seeded above them would lose prior to the frozen four.

They took the only two non-eastern teams that they let in, and made them play each other to get to the frozen four - ensuring that they’d only have to put one team on an airplane, and stacked the deck with 3 eastern teams (including the host) as the other frozen four participants.
 

Gustavus lost in the national championship game in OT last year. They returned pretty much the entire team and spent most of this season ranked #1 in the polls (no lower than #2). They have a cross conference rivalry with Wisconsin River Falls and played 3 tight games with them during the regular season (losing 2 of them). Meanwhile River Falls took a trip out east and beat at least two of the traditional eastern powers on their own ice. So, the only time GAC wasn’t ranked #1 this year, River Falls was moved up to #1 mid season.

But in D3, under the described reason “saving money” - they supposedly try to reduce travel. So when the 11 team national tourney seedings were announced, GAC got #4 and RF got #5! No other MIAC or WIAC teams were given at large bids. In fact, they were the only two schools located outside of the eastern time zone. Meanwhile, one of the eastern conferences was awarded FOUR bids (champ and three at-large). Unfortunate Augsburg (very good team this season) essentially missed out on an at large bid thanks to their zip code.

The top remaining seed gets to host the frozen four. So, it was no accident putting #1 ranked GAC in the 4 seed. There was no chance all three schools seeded above them would lose prior to the frozen four.

They took the only two non-eastern teams that they let in, and made them play each other to get to the frozen four - ensuring that they’d only have to put one team on an airplane, and stacked the deck with 3 eastern teams (including the host) as the other frozen four participants.
If that is all accurate... someone should be fired. Glad it worked for the Gusties.
 




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