BG hockey team left out of NCAA tournament field

Mar. 22—BOWLING GREEN — The Bowling Green State University hockey team finished the season ranked No. 13 in the nation, but a late-season swoon cost the Falcons a berth in the NCAA tournament.

Bowling Green (20-10-1) was left out of the 16-team field for the national tournament.

The NCAA held its selection show on Sunday night, and the Falcons saw fellow Western Collegiate Hockey Association members Lake Superior State and Minnesota State earn spots in the national tournament.

The Falcons tied for second in the WCHA during the regular season with an 8-5-1 record (27 points). Minnesota State won the WCHA regular-season title with a 13-1-0 record, while Lake Superior State (9-5-0) tied BG for second place.

However, the Falcons then lost the best-of-3 series, 2-1, to Northern Michigan in the quarterfinals of the WCHA tournament. That placed BG firmly on the bubble of making the NCAA tournament.

Lake Superior then defeated Northern Michigan in the WCHA tournament championship game as the Lakers claimed an automatic berth in the NCAA field.

BG fell behind 1-0 in the three-game series against Northern Michigan before bouncing back with a 5-0 shutout of the Wildcats. However, NMU stuck the dagger on BG with a 5-1 win in the decisive third game of the series on March 14.

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St. Lawrence, which had earned an automatic bid, had to opt out of the NCAA tournament due to the coronavirus protocols. St. Lawrence coach Brent Brekke received a positive coronavirus test and had to opt out due to NCAA quarantine guidelines.

That late development opened up some optimism for Bowling Green. However, Notre Dame (14-13-2) ended up taking the spot of St. Lawrence.

The No. 1-overall seed will be North Dakota (21-5-1), and they will play in the Midwest Region, while Boston College (17-5-1) earned the No. 2-overall seed and will compete in the Northeast Region.

Minnesota (23-6) earned the top spot in the West Region, while Wisconsin (20-9-1) will be the No. 1-seed in the East Region.

On Jan. 18, the Falcons had moved into the top 5 of the USCHO's Top 20 poll. It was the program's highest ranking on the list since at least the 2006-2007 season.

BG started the season on fire, rolling out to a 12-1 start. It was the second-best start in program history. Senior goalie Eric Dop picked up the victory in a 3-2 win over Bemidji State on Jan. 8, marking his 12th straight win dating back to last season. BG sat along atop the WCHA standings (3-0) at that point.

Bowling Green then moved up to No. 5 in the rankings after a two-game sweep of Northern Michigan. The Falcons improved to 14-2 on Jan. 16.

However, BG then went 6-8-1 over the final 15 games of the season. The Falcons endured a four-game losing streak but then won three in a row heading into the WCHA tournament.

The program has now put together a seventh consecutive 20-win season.

Sixteen teams earned spots in the national tournament: six conference champions and 10 at-large teams selected by the Division I Men's Ice Hockey Committee.

Mike Kemp, the chairman of the men's hockey selection committee, said on the ESPNU selection show that it was an arduous task. Kemp said the top criteria included strength of schedule, wins and losses, quality of competition, and what teams' records were against teams that were under consideration to be in the field.

"We delved into a lot of the numbers," Kemp said. "As we got toward later in the selections, we looked at what your record was against teams in the field. It was extremely stressful. I'm not going to make any bones about it. This was a long arduous task that our committee did a marvelous job of putting in the time and really doing the research.

"The field came out actually pretty well at the end."

BG went 1-7 against Minnesota State, Bemidji State, and Lake Superior. All three of those WCHA teams earned spots in the tournament.

Kemp said the two teams that benefited from the late withdraw by St. Lawrence were Notre Dame (14-13-2) and Omaha (14-10-1).

The committee also choose Bemidji State (15-9-3) over BG. The Falcons went 1-3 against Bemidji State.

Nate Wells, a hockey bracketologist whose resume includes stories in The Athletic and NCAA.com, said up until the final three to four weeks he believed BG was an easy decision to make the field as the WCHA's second team.

He said the tough finish for the Falcons, especially losing to NMU, did not allow BG to get a chance to play Minnesota State, Bemidji State, or Lake Superior State again.

"I think it came down to Lake Superior State winning the automatic bid, making the decision for a third WCHA team between Bemidji State and Bowling Green rather than both getting in," Wells said. "The Lakers went from being the fifth option to second in a matter of six weeks."

Wells said the committee favored Bemidji's wins over Minnesota State and its 3-1-0 record against BG. He also said although the Falcons earned 20 wins, two were against Division III schools and those technically don't count.

Finally Wells said this year the committee did not use the regular Pairwise rankings and that hurt the Falcons chances.

Minnesota earned the No. 2 seed in the West Region, while Bemidji State is the No. 4 seed in the East region and Lake Superior is third-seeded in the East Regional.

The Falcons went 10-6-0 at home at the Slater Family Ice Arena and 10-4-1 on the road. BG finished the season ranked 11th in the nation in goals scored per game (3.48) and goals against per game (2.07). The Falcons plus-41 margin in goal differential ranked sixth in the country.

After the WCHA tournament loss to Northern Michigan, BG coach Ty Eigner seem to see the writing on the all.

"It's never easy to end your season," Eigner said. "Today was hard."

Eigner, a 1993 BG graduate who took over the program in 2019, had spent the previous nine years as an assistant for the Falcons.

Eigner said the program is clearly on an uptick. The senior class won 20 or more games all four years and went to an NCAA tournament and a WCHA championship game.

"This senior class has been as big, has had as much of an impact on this program as there's been a senior class in 20 years," he said.

Junior defenseman Will Cullen was named the WCHA's co-defensive player of the year. In 28 games, Cullen finished with 25 points. The defenseman scored six goals to go along with 19 assists.

Senior forward Brandon Kruse led the Falcons with 34 points in 31 games this season. Kruse scored 11 goals to go along with a team-high 23 assists.

Fellow senior forward Cameron Wright finished with 29 points (13 G, 16 A), while senior forward Connor Ford scored a team-high 16 goals to go along with 12 assists for 28 points.

Dop (13-8-1) finished with a 2.16 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage with two shutouts. Sophomore goalie Zack Rose went 7-2-0 with a 1.98 GAA and .908 save percentage.

BG was coming off a 21-13-4 season (14-10-7 WCHA) that was cut short just before the second round of the WCHA tournament.

First Published March 21, 2021, 7:17pm