Whenever the calendar has turned to March, two NESCAC women's hockey teams - Bowdoin and Middlebury - have historically distanced themselves from the rest of the pack, meeting in the conference finals each of the last four years.
This year, however, the NESCAC heavyweights are hardly guaranteed another one-two finish in the conference tournament. When the semifinal of the 2007 NESCAC Tournament kicks off Saturday, the Polar Bears and Panthers may encounter their most formidable challenge yet.
"If you were to look at our conference now, it's safe to say that it's pretty darn competitive from top to bottom," Hamilton coach Brendon Knight said. "For the first time in a long time, you can't just automatically pencil in Middlebury and Bowdoin in the final."
Knight's fourth-seeded Continentals will open the semifinal with a 1 p.m. showdown against the Panthers, who earned a first-round bye and the right to host the remainder of the tournament as the No. 1 seed. Hamilton will return to the second weekend of the NESCAC Tournament for the third time in four years, a week after ousting fifth-seeded Colby in a 4-3 overtime thriller.
On the surface, the clash between Middlebury and Hamilton appears to be a mismatch. While Knight is in his first season coaching women's hockey, his counterpart on the Panthers' bench, Bill Mandigo, has 18 full years of head coaching experience at Middlebury under his belt. And, whereas the Continentals have never advanced beyond the NESCAC semifinals, the Panthers have won five national titles to accompany their four conference championships. Still, Hamilton insists it will not be intimidated by Middlebury's substantial edge in experience.
"I'd be lying to you if I said it's not on the back of our minds," Knight said. "But at the end of the day, we can only control ourselves. If we play to our potential, I'm pretty confident that we're going to have an opportunity to win that game, and that's all you can ask for in playoff hockey."
The Continentals will benefit from having taken on a brutal regular-season schedule, which saw them lose five games to teams ranked in the United States College Hockey Online (USCHO) Div. III top-10 and two others to Div. I Sacred Heart. Four of those contests, however, including a Nov. 25 loss to the second-ranked Panthers, wound up being decided by just a single goal, which proved to Hamilton that it could compete with the best in the nation.
"If you were to look back at our history, we haven't really been extremely competitive against the top teams in the country," Knight said. "You can never be satisfied with losing, but they gave us a sense of confidence that we are able to compete at that level, and that's very, very important."
Saturday's 4 p.m. semifinal will pit second-seeded Bowdoin, winners of two NESCAC championships and finalists in all five that have ever been played, against No. 3 Amherst, which is making its first-ever appearance in the second round of the conference tournament. While experience appears to give the Polar Bears the overwhelming advantage, the Lord Jeffs are coming off their program's best-ever season, setting a team record with 17 wins and posting their highest-ever finish in the NESCAC standings.
Last Saturday may have marked Amherst's loudest statement that it is primed to join the conference's elite after it earned the program's first-ever victory in the NESCAC Tournament, coming from behind to top Little Three archrival Williams 3-2 in overtime. The Jeffs, however, do not anticipate suffering a hangover from the biggest win in program history.
"I think if anything, we take confidence out of knowing we can bend and not break and win close games," Amherst coach Jim Plumer said. "I don't think our team is satisfied. I think we're happy that we're achieving goals we set for ourselves. The excitement of getting to play in the Final Four is a big deal for us. But I think by the time we get to Middlebury next weekend, what happened this past weekend will be behind us."
The victory over Williams continued a blistering pace the Jeffs set during the regular season, when they lost just one of their final 17 games after opening the 2006-07 campaign 3-4. Part of that run included a Jan. 19 draw against Bowdoin, which saw the Jeffs yield two goals in the final minute of regulation and settle for a 3-3 tie.
"Immediately after the game you feel like it's a missed opportunity," Plumer said. "When you look back on it, though, you realize, historically, we had never taken a point from them. You realize it's a learning experience. If you learn from it and you start winning some close games like we've been able to do down the stretch, then it's worth it."
Both Hamilton and Amherst realize they represent the often-overlooked teams in the conference and now have the chance to prove that the NESCAC runs deeper than its two traditional powerhouses. But first and foremost, each team is playing to fulfill its own goals.
"We don't want to just show up there on Saturday, play the game, and go home," Knight said. "It's important to us to make our mark, put a stamp on the NESCAC playoffs and it's very important for us to have a great performance on Saturday."
"For us, this weekend is an opportunity to make a statement to the rest of the world that NESCAC has changed," Plumer said. "But it's more a reward for everything we've done. I don't think we're that cognizant about what we're doing for the rest of the people - it's more about what we're doing for us."
