Trinity Men's Ice Hockey Opens NESCAC Title Defense This Weekend
Hartford, Conn., Feb. 27, 2009 - The Trinity College men's ice hockey team, which posted a regular season record of 15-8 and finished fourth in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) at 12-7, will begin its defense of its 2008 league crown when it hosts the Connecticut College Camels in the quarterfinal round of the NESCAC Championship Tournament on Sat., Feb. 28 at 1 p.m. No. 5-seeded Connecticut College finished the year 13-8-3 overall and 9-7-3 in the league including a pair of 6-3 wins over the Bantams on Nov. 30 and Feb. 8. Last season, Trinity won road games at Bowdoin and Colby before edging Middlebury College, 3-2, in double overtime in the 2008 NESCAC Finals. The Bantams also won the league title in 2003. The game will also be webcast live at www.teamline.cc (team code 2055).
Trinity, under the direction of David Cataruzolo (2nd Season), qualified for the NESCAC Championship Tournament for the ninth straight season. The Bantams are playing in the first round at home for the first time in four years and for the first time ever at Williams Rink and the Koeppel Community Sports Center. The winner of the NESCAC Championship Tournament will determine the league's automatic qualifier for the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament. Top-seeded Amherst (16-2-1, 18-4-1) hosts No. 8-seeded Tufts (7-10-2, 11-11-2) in its quarterfinal game, while No. 2-seeded Middlebury (14-4-1, 17-6-1) hosts No. 7-seeded Hamilton 8-11-0 9-14-1, and No. 3-seeded Williams (12-5-2 14-8-2) hosts No. 6-seeded Bowdoin (8-9-2 11-11-2) in the other first round games this Saturday. The highest remaining seed after the quarterfinal games will host the tournament semifinals and finals next weekend.
Trinity ranks No. 2 in the NESCAC in scoring (3.78 goals per game), scoring defense (2.52 goals allowed per game), penalty kill percentage (87.7), while sophomore Wesley Vesprini (Lexington, Mass.) is fourth in the league among goaltenders in GAA (2.38). Vesprini also has 455 saves, a .916 save percentage and two shutouts with a 12-5 record.
Senior blueliners William Burns (Livonia, Mich.) and Chris Diozzi (Belmont, Mass.) anchor the Bantam defens, which has held its opponents to 205 less shots on goal than Trinity has taken this winter. Diozzi, a co-captain and a semifinalist for the Concannon award as the top American-born Division II/III player in New England , adds six goals and nine assists and Burns chips in with three goals and three assists on the offensive end. First-year defenseman Mike DeMayo (Seaford, N.Y.) has been a big contributor on both ends of the ice with seven goals and seven assists and was the lone Trinity player to take NESCAC Player of the Week this season when he earned Most Valuable Player honors while leading Trinity to the Assumption College Holiday Tournament title.
Sophomore forward Adam Houli (Howell, N.J.) leads Trinity in scoring with 10 goals and 11 assists for 21 points, while first-year forward Paul Jaskot (Methuen, Mass.) is right behind him with 10 goals and 10 assists for 20 points. Senior co-captain forward Ryan Masucci (Winthrop, Mass.) is third on the team in scoring with eight goals and 11 assists for 19 points, and classmate Chris Powers (Lynnfield, Mass.) has seven goals and eight assists on the year. Ten players on the well-rounded Bantam roster have more than 10 points on the season.
