The Aurora University hockey team will travel to the 2016 ACHA Division III Men's Hockey Pacific Regional Tournament.
ACHA Tournament WebsiteAU will travel to Lincoln, Nebraska at
John Breslow Ice Center on Friday, February 19, 2016, to take on the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Game time is set for 3:00 p.m. This is the third meeting between the two schools in hockey this season with AU having won the previous two match-ups 9-2 and 6-3 in November.
The Spartan hockey program, under the direction of Head Coach
Jack Wood, will make its second ACHA Regional appearance in the program's third season of existence.
AU enters the ACHA tournament with a 20-3-0-2 overall record and ranked No. 6 in the Pacific Region. The top two finishers in the regional will advance to the ACHA National Championships in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 8-12, 2016 at the Southside Ice Arena.
This season, AU is led offensively by
Vince Palermo (14 goals, 19 assists for 33 points),
Ben Stachowiak (9 goals, 21 assists for 30 points),
Paul Mascitti (12 goals, 11 assists for 23 points) and
Brandon Zurick (10 goals, 13 assists for 23 points). The goalies leading AU are
Brad Neal (10-2 with a 2.21 goals against average and one shutout),
Will Rohleder (5-1 with a 3.32 goals against average) and
Connor Fissel (4-0 with a 1.57 goals against average and two shutouts).
With a win on Friday, AU will advance to the final contest on Saturday against an opponent to be determined. The bracket is reordered by seed after the opening round.
Saturday's games will be split between the John Breslow Ice Center – the location of all of Friday's games – and the Lincoln Ice Box. The middle seeds will play at 7:00 am at Breslow while the high and low seed matchup will be played at 12:30 pm at the StarCenter.
