Dan Zalewski

Sports Editor

The Millersville Marauder’s Club Ice Hockey team brought their season to a close last week after they were eliminated in the semifinal round of the Colonial State Colleges Hockey Conference tournament.

The Millersville Marauders entered the tournament with a record of 9-4-1 in league play, good for the third seed.

Due to the club nature of the ice hockey team, their division is not full of PSAC rivals like other Millersville sports. However, as fate will have it, their first round opponents were the only other PSAC conference school in their division, West Chester.

The first round against West Chester carried with it a tremendous amount of pressure for the Marauders. West Chester entered the tournament as defending champions of the CHCSC.

The Marauders pushed through against the defending champs and won the game by a single goal, 4-3.

Millersville’s next opponents were a team of a different variety. Unlike their local rivals from a few hours away, their semifinals opponents were of the Ivy League breed.

The Marauders squared off against the Princeton Tigers. The Tigers finished with a league record of 10-3-1, just edging out Millersville in the standings.

Unfortunately, just like in the standings, Princeton beat the Marauders by a score of 5-3.

One of the leaders of the team, Matt Iehle. Rounded out the season with 28 points, second only to Lancaster native, James McNally. He took both positives and negatives from their loss to Princeton.

“I think the energy as a team was there. We played very well in the offensive zone,” Iehle said, “Penalties killed us as we couldn’t stay out of the box. The playoff hockey intensity was there.”

The Marauders still have pride in their finish and are looking forward to next season.

“This year we played close games to seventh ranked Rowan and lost in OT to tenth [ranked] Virginia Tech,” Iehle mentioned, “The ultimate goal for next season is to bring a league championship home to Millersville. As in past years, we have fallen just short of bringing the cup home, this club is well overdue for a championship.”