March 1, 2009
THE SOUTH PREVAILS!!!!!
DI & DII Semi's Set
Live in Snellville, GA at the South East Regional Championships, the southern
conference teams have taken over. That’s right, all across the
board the south has shown impressive results. In D1 the favored UCF
Knights started off a little shaky and was losing at the beginning of both
their games. This didn’t last long though and they quickly realized
that this is playoffs and its either go big or go home. With two
dominating wins, they have locked in first place seed going into the
playoffs. Florida and Florida International had a battle developing on
the other rink while Central Florida was putting on what one might have
mistaken as a free clinic against NC State. The Gator, Panther game ended
in a dead heat with one of Florida’s “Twin Towers,” Jesse
Meyer, scoring to tie it with 1:40 left to go in the game. This gave the
Knights their automatic first seed since they were the only 2-0 team in the
division. In the other D1 games the south just proved that they are the
dominate conference and that this civil rivalry is very lopsided. In the quarter
finals game tonight NC State got a rematch on rival East Carolina and took
advantage of it with a large scaled victory. FIU faced off with Middle
Tenn and almost blew not only their regional tournament, but also their national bid
possibility as well. With a late comeback with 10 minutes to go in the
game they finally regained the lead. Middle Tenn had a few great chances
at the end of the game, but just couldn’t capitalize.
In D2 the south has also taken off full speed and never looked back.
First ranked Florida Atlantic has shown that not only very few teams in this
region belong on the same rink as them, but also very few teams in this country
as well. They are my pick to win this year’s D2 regional
championship, and with such a young team they will definitely be contenders for
many regional and national titles in the near future. Not far behind is
in-state rival Tampa. In their only meeting this season Florida Atlantic
was victorious, although Tampa has been very solid so far this weekend.
If Tampa can keep their composure and stay out of the box, I think they will
get a rematch against Florida Atlantic in this year’s regional
championship game. In this evenings quarter finals games, fatigue kicked
in. Having already played 3 games in the day, you could tell the teams didn’t
have the “spark” they had earlier. There weren’t any
upsets in the quarter finals, although some great nail bitters. Elon and
West Carolina were neck and neck throughout the entire game, with Elon finally
capitalizing late. Elon also had a 5 minute power play that West Carolina
did an amazing job killing off. It will be interesting to see how the games
wind up tomorrow in the semi finals and the finals.









