March 5, 2011
A Look at the WCRHL Division I Regular Season
By Chase Norman
Even though the Western Collegiate
Roller Hockey League’s 2010-2011 regular season is officially over, the battle
for the Division I crown is all but finished.
The Arizona State Sun Devils finished atop the standings for the second
consecutive year and are hoping to improve on last years stellar post-season
performance that saw them fall to Lindenwood University in the championship game
at the Collegiate Roller Hockey Championships, hosted by the NCRHA in San Jose,
CA last April.
Long Beach State
finished the regular season in second place fueled by the WCRHL’s most potent
offensive attack. Long Beach finished the season with 27 points
in 20 games, only four points behind the league-leading Sun Devils. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo ended up taking
third place with 26 points, followed by UC Santa Barbra with 21, UNLV with 17
and San Jose State with eight points.
The Division I standings this year
saw constant lead changes with Arizona State, Long Beach State and Cal Poly SLO
all spending time atop the standings.
Around the midway point of the season Cal Poly SLO was sitting pretty on
the top of the standings but dropped to third after going 2-4-1 and in their
last seven games of the season. While
Cal Poly struggled down the stretch, Arizona
State showed why they are
one of the elite collegiate teams in the nation by going 7-0 in their last
seven games to claim the top spot in the standings.
“This season has had a lot more ups
and down,” said Arizona State senior Brian Ganz from Sunnyvale, CA. “But we’ve battled back and handled the
adversity. Our next step is this weekend
at the WCRHL Regional Championships, it is going to show us a lot about what we
need to do before Nationals.”
The schedule
and playoff
bracket for the WCRHL Regional Championship Tournament can be found at www.wcrhl.com.
Be sure to follow us on Facebook
(www.facebook.com/wcrhl) for scores
and WCRHL updates.
By: Chase Norman
[email protected]
The top five teams will do battle
in Corona, CA on March 5th and 6th at the WCRHL Regional Championship
Tournament to determine who will earn the honor of being this season’s Division
I champion. The five teams will compete
in a round robin with the top four teams advancing to the semifinals. Last year’s championship game saw Long Beach State
pull an upset over favored Arizona
State and win the game
8-7 on an overtime goal by Christian Bernad.
The race for the honor of being the
Division I top scorer was very tight this year, but once again Arizona State’s Brian Ganz came out on
top with 67 points. Not far behind Ganz
was Long Beach’s
Ryan Burrows with 64
points followed closely by Travis Noe of UC Santa
Barbara with 62. Long Beach’s
goaltending duo of brothers Brandon and Corey Jones proved to
be deadly with Brandon posting 3.12 GAA to lead Division I and Cory posting a
Division I best 0.842 save percentage. Erik Long of Cal Poly
SLO led all of Division I with his 11 wins.