Regional Pools Announced!
Another regular season is in the books for Cortland Roller Hockey. For the 3rd consecutive season in Division 2, the Dragons will play for a chance to win the ECRHA Regional Championship. Cortland finished the year on a high note with a 4-3 win in overtime. The win gave them a final record of 14-4 and allowed them to finish 3rd in the conference. The team will go into the regional tournament with hope that the thrilling win against Delaware allows them to regain their lost momentum.
Earlier this week, the playoff pools were announced for regionals. Cortland was placed in a pool with #2 St. Joseph’s, #10 Oswego, #7 Brockport, and #6 Stony Brook. The team went 2-2 against these teams during the regular season, so this pool has potential to be filled with exciting matchups. The two wins during the season came against Oswego (W 9-2) and Brockport (W 4-2), while the two losses came against St. Joseph’s (L 9-4) and Stony Brook (L 5-1).
Now that the playoffs are set, it is important to understand how the playoff format works at regionals because it can be somewhat confusing. A team earns 2 points for a win and 1 point for an overtime loss in pool play. Each team plays the other 4 teams in their pool one time. The top 3 teams in each pool advance to the elimination round. The top team in each bracket gets a bye to the semifinals and awaits a winner of the other games. The format for the first round is as follows. The 2nd seed of pool A plays the 3rd seed of pool B and vice versa. After the first round, the lower seed that advances plays the higher seeded team that received a bye, while the higher seed that advances plays the lower seeded team that got a bye. The winners of these games will face each other for the ECRHA Regional Championship. The winner gets an automatic bid to the National Championships, which are located in Independence, Missouri this year. Just like the College Basketball March Madness tournament, you don’t have to win your conference to make Nationals. Given their record, Cortland is one of the conference favorites to make Nationals this year, but they will have to put on a solid performance at Regionals to get there.
Will Cortland bounce back after a tough end to the season? Will they be able to advance out of their pool? Will the Cortland Dragons be the next ECRHA Regional Champions? All of these questions will be answered this weekend. Come back next week for a recap of the weekend!