Adrian College Sends Teams to all Four ACHA National Tournaments

At a time where in a normal season we would be talking about how teams ended their seasons and which players won which awards, four of Adrian College's ACHA hockey teams prepare to head across the country to play for a national championship. But as we've seen in the last twelve months and as I talked about in my blog back in December, this is definitely not a typical hockey season.

This season, the NCAA announced that DIII would not host a number of winter national tournaments, including men's and women's hockey. The ACHA announced around the same time that the National Tournament would no longer be held in one location for all five divisions and that they would not be hosting a Women's Div. 2 or Men's Div. 3 tournament because of the number of teams playing in each division. A few weeks later the ACHA would reverse the decision to cut the Men's Div. 3 tournament.

Originally, the ACHA planned to host all five tournaments in one location for the fifth year in a row. Rather than have all five divisions compete in Marlborough, Massachusetts, the four divisions with a national tournament will all head their separate ways in two weeks.

The Men's DI team heads to St. Louis, Missouri where they enter the tournament as the #1 overall seed after posting an 18-1 record. The Bulldogs took home their ninth GLCHL Regular Season Title and their seventh GLCHL Playoff Title during the season. The Bulldogs ride a 10 game win streak heading into the National Tournament, The Dawgs take on McKendree University in the first game of the tournament on Friday, April 16th. The 2021 National Tournament marks the second straight year that the Bulldogs head into the National Tournament at the first place spot in the rankings as the Bulldogs look to take home their second National Championship title.

The Men's DII team heads to Bismarck, North Dakota, making their first appearance since their first season as an ACHA DII team back in 2018. The Bulldogs posted a 10-7 record this season and head into Nationals on a three game win streak, taking down rival Trine University in three straight games to end the regular season. The Bulldogs enter the tournament as the #10 seed and will begin poll play on April 15th against #7 Dakota College before facing off against #2 Lindenwood and they finish out pool play against #15 East Texas Baptist University.

The Men's DIII team heads to the National Tournament this season as the #4 team in the country and for the first time since the 2016-17 season. This season will be the fifth season that the MD3 team will head to the National Tournament. The D3 Dawgs will head closer to home than the other three teams, squaring off against opponents in Grand Rapids, Michigan at Patterson Ice Arena. The Bulldogs open the D3 tournament against #5 Florida Gulf Coast University on Thursday, April 15th. The play #8 Missouri State on Friday, April 16th and square off against longtime rival #1 Hope College in their final game of pool play on April 17th.

The Women's DI team will head to Minot, North Dakota for the WD1 National Tournament, making their eighth appearance at the National Tournament. They head to the tournament holding a 4-5 record to be the #5 seed in the tournament. Their league, the CCWHA, did not play this season due to a lack of teams participating in the season, so the WD1 team faced off against the Liberty University Flames four times this season, the Aquinas Saints twice, and Minot State twice this season and Concordia University-Ann Arbor once. The Bulldogs face #2 Minot in game 1 on April 15th, #4 Lindenwold on April 16th and #1 Liberty on April 17th in pool play.

In a year where we began the season thankful for ice time and the ability to be on campus with our teammates and classmates, sending all four eligible teams to Nationals to end the year is more than an impressive feat. Stay tuned here and on the Twitter accounts of the four respective teams to see how your Bulldogs fair as they all vye for a National Championship in perhaps the toughest year of hockey we have ever seen.