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NESCAC 24-25: This time for sure!

Well, Midd manages to gather 4 points this weekend, keeping up their lose on the road / win at home record intact. This puts them tied for 5th place with Tufts, with Amherst/Williams tied for 7th, and Trinity/Bowdoin tied for 2nd.

Tufts holds the tie-breakers, so technically 5th, and Midd in 6th.

What's going to be more exciting is next weekend:

Trinity is doing the Home/Home vs last place Wesleyan, Bowdoin/Colby is hosting Tufts/Conn College, and Midd/Williams hosting Hamilton/Amherst.

There are some (very unlikely) scenario's where Midd takes 4th place and hosts a Quarterfinal. There more likely scenario's where Midd drops to 7th or 8th place,
 
Midd ended up with 4 points from the home-and-home with Willams. Could have easily been 5 or even 6, but at least they gained a two-point differential against the Ephs. A win against Amherst and they'll be in the middle of the playoff pack, in all likelihood.

I went to the Saturday night game at the Chip. Very moving, as they game was played in memory of the sister of senior Drew Malatesta, who died from brain cancer while a high schooler. The folks who lead the foundation set up in her name, the Catherine Malatesta Foundation at https://cjmfoundation.org/, did a great job introducing their mission last night. And in an awesome moment on the ice, Drew got the assist on the short-hander that put the Panthers up 2-0. He's a great young man; full props to him and his family.
 
Trying to make sense of why the standings currently show Middlebury ahead of Tufts - and if that's just an alphabetical thing or if the NESCAC head-to-head comparison isn't entirely clear.

Conference tiebreaker rules are here: https://nescac.com/tournaments/?id=525&path=micechamp

Middlebury and Tufts are level on points at 22. Middlebury's record is 7W-8L-1T and Tufts' is 7-9-0. Within that, Middlebury has no OT wins or losses and no SO wins, but has one SO loss. Tufts has one OT loss.

By the NESCAC rules, there's nothing to separate them, as Midd's SO loss and Tufts' OT loss are treated the same even though one counts as a tie.

Looking at the tiebreakers for three-way/multiple teams, the next one is record against top four teams, where Midd is currently 3-4 and Tufts is 2-4, with Midd to play Hamilton and Tufts to play Bowdoin and Colby this weekend. So wonder if they've used that.

Weirdly, Midd both needs Colby to beat Tufts to give the Panthers a bit of breathing space and needs Tufts to beat Colby to have the very slightest chance at home ice.
 
The 0-0 tie to Williams by Midd where they failed to get the extra point from the shootout could loom large in the final standings.
 
Anyone at the Midd-Amherst game last night? Did the boys implode, giving up four goals and an empty netter? Haven't seen that bad of a period all year. Bad timing, eh?
 
I was there. Yea, I don't know what happened exactly. Midd was up 3-2 at the start of the period.

Amherst was playing fast all night long and it looked like they just tired Midd out. Two goals on the 4-on-4 play and a really nice blue line snipe were what set Midd on their heels. Despite several sustained efforts they just couldn't break through the Amherst defense and goal tending.

A very different story today when Midd takes down Hamliton 4-2.
 
Well, things happen in strange ways. Middlebury has had difficulty holding leads at "winning time" and the Amherst game was no exception. I have to give credit to the Panthers for their efforts the next day against the better of the two opponents, Hamilton. I really didn't think one goal against the Continentals was going to hold up. When Midd quickly gave up the lead and were then trailing in the 3rd period. it looked like collapsing was happening all over again. But the Panthers dug in their heels and got the equalizer and then two more goals by Morehouse. They gave out what they have frequently fallen victim to. It looks like they will face Trinity in the playoffs and they have played well against the Bantams in both games this year only to implode at the end. Hopefully they will be be able to dish out more of what they gave Hamilton and end that losing streak to Trinity which is over 20 games now. Too bad they could not have prevailed against Amherst in which case the would be playing Colby, a team they have defeated twice this season.
 
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