If the Lynah Faithful couldn’t derive enough satisfaction over the men’s hockey team’s hammering of Harvard and its four-point weekend, there is now more reason to celebrate. Yesterday the release of the newest USCHO.com poll had Cornell in eighth, a three-rung jump up from its position last week. The Red (15-5-1, 11-2-1, ECAC) is the highest-ranked team in the poll not to have earned a first-place vote.
Denver kept the top spot despite being swept by Colorado College, which moved from eighth to sixth. St. Cloud, thanks to a pair of whippings at Alabama-Hunstville’s expense, took second. New Hampshire, Michigan State, and Minnesota round out the top 5.
St. Cloud had 12 first place votes to Denver’s 11, but Denver ended up with a scant five more total points. There is an obvious delineation between the first and second tiers in the poll. On the fault line lie Maine (seventh with 405 points) and Cornell (eighth with 284 points).
BU slipped behind the Red for the first time this season as the Terriers slipped to ninth. Also falling were Northern Michigan (seventh to 10th) and UMass-Lowell, which dropped from ninth to 12th after a loss to Brown last Tuesday.
Harvard, which crept into the national rankings for the first time last week, tumbled out of the poll after losses to Cornell and Colgate. And after last night’s loss in the Beanpot to Northeastern, the Crimson can probably expect a further slide.
In the more important Pairwise Rankings, Cornell is currently ninth.
Here’s the weekly round-up of who’s who at the top of the major conferences: Michigan State (CCHA), Bemidji State and Wayne State (CHA), Cornell (ECAC), New Hampshire (Hockey East), Merceyhurst (MAAC) and Denver (WCHA).
Archived article by Sun Staff