PURCHASE, N.Y. – For the third straight year and for the eighth time in the last nine years, the Manhattanville men's hockey team will begin its quest for an ECAC West Conference Tournament championship on home ice, as the fourth-seeded Valiants host fifth-seeded Neumann in a first-round matchup on Wednesday, February 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Terry Conners Rink in Stamford, Conn.
 
Tickets for the game are $7.00 for adults and $3.00 for non-Manhattanville students (with valid ID), while all Manhattanville students who come to the game with a valid student ID will be admitted free of charge courtesy of the Manhattanville Athletic Department. Fans that can't make it to Stamford for the game can watch live on GoValiants.TV, with live stats also available by clicking here.
 
Needing at least a tie to clinch a home game, Manhattanville (12-11-2, 5-8-2 ECAC West) secured a top-four spot in the conference tournament with a 3-1 win over #13 and top-seeded Utica on Saturday night, giving them a one-point edge over Neumann (9-11-5, 4-8-3 ECAC West) in the race for a home postseason game. Third-seeded Hobart (13-8-4, 7-5-3 ECAC West) and sixth-seeded Nazareth (8-15-2, 4-9-2 ECAC West) will meet in the other first-round game on Wednesday night in Geneva.
 
The Valiants will be making their 15th consecutive appearance in the ECAC West Tournament this week. Manhattanville is 11-10 all-time in the conference tournament, but is an excellent 10-5 in the last nine seasons and has won four ECAC West Tournament titles (2005, 2007, 2008, 2010) during that time.
 
Manhattanville and Neumann have only met twice in the ECAC West Tournament, with both teams winning a championship on their home ice. The Valiants won the 2007 ECAC West Tournament championship with a 5-4 (OT) win over the Knights, but Neumann got some payback last season with a 3-0 victory of its own in the championship game.
 
The two teams have played very evenly against one another this season, with the squads playing to a 1-1-1 record in three contests. Manhattanville earned a 3-0 shutout victory in the first meeting on November 9, followed up a few weeks later by Neumann posting a three-goal win of its own, 7-4, in Aston. More recently, the two teams skated to a 2-2 (OT) tie at Terry Conners on January 31 in their final regular-season meeting.
 
The Manhattanville offensive attack enters the week ranked 17th in Division III by averaging 3.44 goals per game, thanks largely to the play of senior co-captain Luc Van Natter (Fort Erie, Ont./Aurora Tigers (OPJHL)). The senior brings a 10-game point streak into the postseason and is tied for the conference lead with his career-high 15 goals this season, while his career-high 30 overall points are second among ECAC West skaters. In 15 conference games, he has nine goals and 11 assists for 20 points.
 
But the offense is more than just Van Natter, as junior Jake Mooney (Toronto, Ont./North York Rangers (OPJHL)) and seniors Mark Rivera (Belmar, N.J./Springfield Pics (EJHL)) and Craig Simchuk (Winnipeg, Man./Winnipeg Saints (MJHL)) also are over the 20-point mark this year. In his first season with Manhattanville, Mooney ranks second on the team with 11 goals to go with 14 assists, and his 25 points are matched by Rivera, who ranks second on the squad with 16 assists. A team co-captain, Simchuk had seven goals and 14 assists for 21 points this season, including three shorthanded tallies that are tied for second in D-III and tied for first on the school's single-season list.
 
Perhaps the best two-way player in the conference this season is junior assistant captain Anton Racklin (Gothenburg, Sweden/Fairbanks Ice Dogs (NAHL)), who is a threat on both ends of the ice for Manhattanville. The conference's leader in assists with 19, he ranks second in D-III among defensemen with 26 points, thanks in large part to his six power-play goals.
 
In between the pipes, senior Alex Scola (Exeter, N.H./Woodstock Slammers (MJHL)) has started the last eight games and 17 of 25 contests overall this season, posting a 2.77 goals against average and .901 save percentage to go with his 9-7-2 record. He hopes to channel his run through the postseason last year, when he allowed two goals on 57 shots through the first two rounds on the way to All-Tournament honors.
 
The Valiants have also been very good on the man advantage this season, ranking ninth in the country with a 24.0 percent success rate on the power play, while the penalty kill has improved in recent weeks and is now up to 38th in the country with an 81.2 percent success rate.
 
Neumann enters the postseason looking to shake off a late-season swoon that has seen the Knights go 2-7-2 since January 16. The Knights are in the middle of the pack in Division III in terms of scoring offense, as the squad ranks fifth out of six ECAC West squads and 32nd nationally by averaging 3.08 goals per game.
 
Four of the team's top five scorers this season are freshmen, which is fitting for a team that boasts only three junior and two senior skaters on the roster. Shayne Morrissey leads the squad with 14 goals and 22 points this season, followed by the team's only other double-digit goal-scorer, Ryan Luiten, with 10 goals and seven assists. Casey Rogers is the team's top playmaker from the blue line, assisting on a team-high 12 goals and adding one goal for 13 points.
 
The one area in which Neumann does have experience is in goal, where senior Braely Torris and junior Ben Curley have essentially alternated games this year. Torris earned ECAC West Tournament Most Valuable Player honors last season after stopping 90 of 91 shots in leading the Knights to the conference title, but has labored to a 3-7-3 record this year despite a respectable 2.75 goals against average and .923 save percentage in 14 games. Curley has started 12 games as well, posting a 6-4-2 record with a 2.62 GAA and .914 save percentage.
 
The winners of Wednesday's games will advance to the semifinal round of the ECAC West Tournament, which will take place this weekend at Utica and Elmira. The top-seeded Pioneers will host the lowest remaining seed at the Utica Memorial Auditorium on Sunday at 4 p.m., while the second-seeded Soaring Eagles will welcome the highest remaining seed to the Murray Athletic Center for a 7 p.m. faceoff on Saturday. The two semifinal winners will converge on the home rink of the highest remaining seed for the ECAC West Tournament championship game, which is set for March 8.