The Virginia Tech men's hockey team led comfortably for most of a 5-2 finals victory in the Atlantic Coast Collegiate Hockey League tournament Sunday afternoon at the Roanoke Civic Center. The win avenges Tech's overtime loss to Duke in last season's ACCHL tourney.
"This is the best team Virginia Tech has had by far," said head coach Mike Spradlin. "It all really started with these seniors four years ago when they were freshmen, and each year our team has gotten better and better."
The Hokies entered the tournament with a 17-7 record on the season including a 9-1 conference record, good enough to win the league's regular season title.
Because they finished first in the standings, the Hokies earned the top seed in the tournament, therefore receiving a bye in Friday's first round.
Tech skated ahead to Saturday's semifinals, in which it handily beat North Carolina by a count of 9-3, advancing to Sunday's championship game against the Blue Devils. Duke was the only ACCHL team to defeat the Hokies this season, winning 2-1 in a shootout in the regular season's final contest.
"We've been waiting for this for a while," said senior defenseman Michael Hultberg.
The first eight minutes of the opening period was all Tech. The Hokies took the first six shots and drew first blood on a goal by sophomore forward Joshua Bennett -- just 1:50 into the game.
But Duke was able to jumpstart its offense on a pair of shots before finally tying the game up with a goal at the 10:49 mark of the first period.
The Hokies broke out of the gate early after the initial intermission. At the 17:36 mark of the second period, junior forward Todd Minetree capitalized on a power play by finding the back of the net -- giving Tech its second goal of the afternoon.
They then began to pull away from the Devils with two more goals in the period. The first came courtesy of senior forward Jimmy Pope and sophomore forward Rick Onorato contributed the second. After the damage was done, the Hokies held a 4-1 advantage.
The Blue Devils made a minor comeback in the third, scoring their second goal with 17:08 to go. Still, they could not inch any closer to their opponent because of the goaltending of Tech senior Jon Allen, who saved 12 shots total.
Allen was one of five Tech players selected for the ACCHL's all-star team and was first in the conference with a goals against average of 2.11 per game.
The Hokies capped the victory over Duke with a goal by senior forward Matthew Harrison on a Blue Devil open net with nine seconds left.
Harrison, another of Tech's all-stars, was the leading goal scorer in the ACCHL regular season with 19 and is one of eight seniors on this year's squad.
With the conference tournament win, the Hokies still have a chance to play more this season if they are selected to compete in the American Collegiate Hockey Association Southeast Regional Tournament, which begins on Friday.
However, Spradlin is not very optimistic.
"Chances are we're probably going to be on the outside looking in," Spradlin said.
To the Hokies, however, the goal all season was winning the ACCHL tournament for the first time in school history. They were able to accomplish it. To the seniors on the team, in particular, it is the perfect way to end a collegiate career.
"We've lost to Duke every year in the playoffs and since I've been here, so I can't really ask for anything more than this," Hultberg said. "This is fine -- this is a great way to go out."