Sophomore forward David Norris celebrates after scoring a goal against Arizona on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015, at Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe. The Sun Devils defeated the Wildcats 7-2. (Ben Moffat/The State Press)The road to Cleveland has begun.
The ACHA National tournament is underway and the defending champions, No. 1 ASU (31-3-1), will start off tomorrow against No. 16 Colorado (14-14-2) after it defeated No. 17 Buffalo (25-6-1) 4-3 on Thursday.
Eight teams kicked off the tournament Thursday, and so far, the favored teams have advanced. The morning started off with No. 14 Davenport (22-10-5) advancing after destroying No. 19 Villanova (21-7-2) 11-2.
That game was followed by another dominating win, 7-2, from No. 15 Niagara (19-5-2) over No. 18 Robert Morris (21-5-1).
Colorado and Buffalo played the third game of the day and Colorado held the lead from the start and advanced with a close 4-3 win. The last game of the evening will be No. 13 Illinois ( 24-16-1) and No. 20 John Carroll (15-19-2) at 8 p.m. EST.
The Sun Devils and Buffaloes have met three times this season, once in October and twice in February, with ASU taking the 3-0 season sweep.
The main difference this time is ASU is without sophomore goalie Robert Levin, who suffered an ACL injury two weeks ago in Tucson.
The team does have two goalies that will step up for the chance of lifetime.
Freshman Jordan Gluck and sophomore Lucas Felbel have been preparing all week after finding out Monday. Together they have played a combined six games but ASU is a team full of strong players including a defense that has contributed greatly to Levin’s nine shutouts this season.
The Sun Devils are also coming off two strong wins against rival No. 39 Arizona (11-22-3) which, as coach Greg Powers mentioned after that weekend, was the ideal way to end the semester before heading to Cleveland.
ASU ended its regular season with just three losses on the season, coming against Central Oklahoma, Stony Brook and Oklahoma, all of which they might come in contact with later in the tournament.
This is just the first step in a long week for the team; if the Sun Devils walk away Friday with a win, they will advance and play Sunday at 4 p.m. EST. If not, their season will come to an end.
There will be four games again Friday and the schedule is as follows (all times are EST):
11 a.m. - No. 3 Minot State vs. Davenport
2 p.m. - No. 2 Central Oklahoma vs. Niagara
5 p.m. - No. 1 ASU vs. No. 16 Colorado
8 p.m. - No. 4 Robert Morris vs. the winner of the Illinois/John Carroll game
Reach the reporter atkewens@asu.eduor follow@katlynewenson Twitter.
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