February 24, 2016
Kansas State Inline Hockey Club clinches regional title
This past weekend, the nationally ranked — No. 17 — Kansas State University Inline Hockey Club traveled to St. Louis for the penultimate weekend of seasonal game play.
Saturday, the Cats defeated Washington University 14-4, before taking on the University of Illinois in a spirited match which K-State won 6-4. This setup up an interregional game with Denver University — No. 12 — from the Rocky Mountain Region. The Cats took an early lead and ended the first period with a score of 2-1. The Denver University Pioneers outscored the Cats 3-0 in the middle period. The Cats scored a short-handed goal early in the third period and never looked back, defeating Denver 5-4.
With one regular season game against Illinois State left to play March 5 in St. Louis, the K-State Wildcats have clinched the Great Plains regular season title. Playoffs will start and complete March 5-6 in St. Louis. The first playoff game will be 10 a.m. March 6 against the fourth-place team, yet to be determined. The final will take place at 3 p.m. March 6 when the region will award the regional championship title and trophy along with an auto bid to the National Invitation Tournament to be in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, April 5-10.
The Kansas State Inline Hockey Club was founded in 1995 and has enjoyed a fairly successful history, having been invited to the national tournament in 2001, 2002, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Our best national finishes have been the Final Four in both 2001 and 2012.
So far this season, The K-State Inlne Hockey Club has won the preseason tournament and clinched the regular season championship in the Great Plains Collegiate Roller Hockey League with a divisional record of 12-2 and overall record of 13-7.
Current league rankings:
Team Games Wins Losses OT/L Points Goals For Goals against
Kansas State 15 10 5 0 20 106 68
Illinois 13 7 5 1 15 65 51
Missouri S&T 16 7 8 1 15 83 108
Illinois State 14 5 9 0 10 73 79
Central Missouri 14 4 8 2 10 56 111
Washington (STL) 14 4 9 1 9 60 136
For more info on the KSU Inline Hockey club, visit our facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/K-State-Inline-Hockey-140834760375/, or the GPCIHL Web page, http://greatplainshockey.com/, or e-mail hockey@k-state.edu.