From Northwestern University Hockey
The Ice Cats are going to the playoffs and what a way to cap off a great season. The Mid-America Collegiate Hockey Association (MACHA) playoffs will be this weekend February 9th-11th with the top 8 seeds from the conference attending. The location of the tournament is at Maryville University in Chesterfield, MO which is a suburb of St. Louis. The Ice Cats have qualified in the 7th seed and will play vs the host school, who goes into the playoffs as the 2nd seed. Puck drop for this match up will be 5:00pm CT at the Maryville University Hockey Center.
Maryville has ended the season with some big wins but this will be a rematch of an earlier weekend series between the two teams also at Maryville. The cats were victorious in game 1, while the Saints came back strong to take game 2. The all time head to head match-up between the two teams has Maryville with a 3-1 lead but all tightly contested match-ups. The goalies on both teams will be heavily watched as they can be the difference maker between these two teams. The Ice Cats will be starting Sophomore Aden Benson in net who has overall record this season of 9-4-0-1 including 1 shutout. He has had a great season and looks to continue that momentum into the weekend. The Ice cats will also need to find some depth scoring if they look to make a run deep into the weekend. They have heavily been lead by the first line but this past weekend vs Indiana University saw others step up at the right time. Maryville is quite balanced on the scoring front with six players all within a couple goals of their leading scorer Lucas Mcmillin. This is going to be a great match-up and a must see. If you would like to watch the game, please see Maryville Saints YouTube Channel Below. Go ‘Cats!
The other match-ups in the MACHA playoffs see a wide range of schools but some big time battles
#1 Mizzou vs #8 University of Nebraska-Omaha
#3 Kansas University vs #6 Wash U – STL
#4 Dordt College vs #5 University of Arkansas
On Saturday, The semi-finals will be played at 2:15pm and 5:15pm with the finals being sunday morning at 11:15am. All games will be played at Maryville which we would like to thank in advance for always being such great hosts.
(Originally published at https://www.northwesternicehockey.com/articles/cats-are-playoff-bound-lsb783pw)
