For the first time in the program’s history, the CMU Club Hockey team made it to regionals in Brookfield, Wisc. The team was ranked #10 in the Pacific Region for ACHA D3 club hockey.
The Mavs took on #3 Colorado State on Feb. 24 in the first round of the tournament. Sophomore center Mitch McGregor scored the first goal of the game to give the Mavericks the 1-0 lead. The Rams responded and scored four goals in the first period. Assistant captain, Tony Falcon, scored CMU’s second goal to end the second period for the only other Maverick score on the day.
The Mavs fell 6-2 to CSU when everything was said and done, ending their season, but the excitement wasn’t quite over for a few of the athletes. Four players and head coach Tim Winegard all received All-American nominations.
“We knew we had a good team coming into the season. We had a lot of returning players, and right at the beginning of the year our goal was to make regionals,” Winegard said.
Winegard arrived at CMU in 2012 and became a professor of history. He started the club hockey program at CMU and has been the head coach ever since. Winegard was nominated for ACHA All-American Coach of the Year award.
“We said if we do this we will make regionals. And we only lost seven games, our power play was 87 percent, and our penalty kill was just over 22 percent,” Winegard said.
“I knew before Christmas that we would make regionals. I thought we’d be ranked higher than 10 and so did a lot of the coaches around the league, but it’s just the way it worked and we ended up being the lowest seed at regionals, playing the highest seed CSU,” said Winegard.
As for players, Captain Chase Engdahl along with freshmen Andrew Endsley earned nominations for All-American forward. Sophomore Marcus Elliason was nominated for All-American defense, for the second year in a row.
“My guess is, Marcus [Elliason] will be a first team All-Star this year. My guess is Chase [Engdahl] will be a second team All-Star for forward, and Andrew [Endsley] will be touch and go.” Winegard said.
“I’m obviously happy to be nominated, it’s an honor. There’s a lot of good players in this league and to be one of the top defensemen it definitely helps,” Elliason said.
Marcus Elliason is a sophomore from Sweden, who has made quite the impression on the team the past two seasons. The defensemen is one of the top in the league for that matter, scoring over 10 points.
“The thing about Marcus is he’s also a really good defensemen, so he knows depending on what team we play he can be more offensive or defensive. So with some of the better teams he didn’t score, but he played a lot focused on defense,” Winegard said. “Whereas some of the weaker teams, he knows he has the opportunity to jump up in the play.”
Andrew Endsley, a freshman from Evergreen, Colo., impressed Winegard and the team this season.
“Andrew [Endsley] was a little bit of a surprise […] he played almost half the game every game. And ending up with the amount of goals he had, he was a pleasant surprise,” Winegard said. “I knew he’d be able to play right out of tryouts, but how much I didn’t know.”
Forward, Craig Boldt was nominated for the All-American Academic award. The nomination is available to juniors and seniors with exceptional academic success. Boldt is a senior athletic training major with a 3.5 cumulative GPA.
“Honestly, it feels good. I didn’t really know about it until coach told me. I feel really good about it,” Boldt said. “I’d rather play for my boys, not for another all-star team.”
After the most successful season the team has had so far, Coach Winegard has high hopes for next season. Not only is he looking forward to having Endsley, Elliason, and Engdahl on the team next season, but there are other members who have grown substantially and will be very huge to the team dynamic next season.
“Mitch (McGregor) came along a lot this season. He still had some ups and downs this season, but in general as a player he’s improved a ton,” Winegard continues, “I think Dave also improved a lot as the season progressed on defense. He started off a little shaky but became just steady. Nothing fancy, but you wanna have him on the ice.”
Assistant captain Tony Falcon made his impression on the season, and is sure to do so in the next season. Sophomore forwards Vincent Lenzi and Hunter Schoepflin are also expected to contribute their junior year. And goalie, Andrew Nash, started in his first season, with quite a few shutouts under his belt. Nash definitely has plenty more saves to make in his next few years with CMU hockey.
“Yeah we have Chase [Engdahl], Andrew [Endsley], Marcus [Elliason] nominated for these All-Americans, but you win or lose as a team, and from day one everyone has a role to fill on this team, and no role is lesser or more important than another. Whether you play 20 shifts a game or 2 shifts a game it all matters,” Winegard said.
“Everything’s as a team, we win/lose as a team, we get awards as a team even if they go to certain individuals, that represents the entire team,” Winegard said.
