The Mercyhurst University women’s hockey team will begin the 2012-13 season ranked 10th in the USCHO.com Division I poll, which was released Monday. The Lakers begin the season Saturday with an 3 p.m. exhibition game against Stoney Creek (Ontario) at Mercyhurst Ice Center. The regular season begins Sept. 28 at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Defending national champion Minnesota tops the list after receiving all 15 first-place votes, followed by Wisconsin, Cornell, Boston College and North Dakota. Boston University stands sixth, ahead of St. Lawrence, Minnesota Duluth, Northeastern and the Lakers. Robert Morris, which snapped Mercyhurst’s nine-year run as College Hockey America Tournament champion a season ago, received one vote in the poll.

Mercyhurst’s streak of five straight finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award has ended.

Senior forward Bailey Bram wasn’t named one of the three finalists for the prestigious award, which annually honors the top women’s hockey player in NCAA Division I. A 13-member selection committee chose Wisconsin junior forward Brianna Decker, North Dakota junior forward Jocelyne Lamoureux and Northeastern senior goaltender Florence Schelling. The finalists were unveiled Thursday.

Bram joined fellow Laker forwards Christine Bestland and Kelley Steadman as well as Girard native Jen Schoullis, a redshirt senior forward at Minnesota, on the initial list of 30 nominees two weeks. Bram survived the cut to 10 players a week ago. But she fell short of joining former teammates Meghan Agosta (2007-09, 2011) and Vicki Bendus (2010) as Kazmaier finalists. Bendus won the award in 2010.

Decker has 36 goals, 42 assists and 78 points for the top-ranked Badgers, who on Saturday begin their quest for a fifth national championship in the past seven years as the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Lamoureux has 34 goals, 48 assists and 82 points for the Fighting Sioux, which earned the seventh seed in the NCAA tournament field. Like her twin sister, Monique Lamoureux-Kolls, she represented the United States in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. Schelling finished the season with a 20-6-4 record, 1.42 goals-against average and .950 save percentage.

The award will be presented March 17 at the Greysolon Ballroom in Duluth, Minn., as part of the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four, which will be held March 16 and 18.

HAVERHILL, Mass. - The College Hockey America coaches have voted who they believe will take the regular0season crown for the 2010-11 season.  Last year’s tournament champion and NCAA Frozen Four Semifinalist, Mercyhurst, which collected 16 points and four first-place votes, is this season’s top choice, as selected by the coaches.

The Lakers prevailed over Syracuse in the CHA Tournament, 3-1, to garner their tenth straight conference crown. Mercyhurst defeated Boston University in the first round of the NCAA Women’s Division I Tournament, before falling to Cornell in the national semifinals, 3- 2 in overtime, in Minneapolis, Minn.

Syracuse, last year’s tournament runner-up has been chosen second by the coaches.  The Orange earned the last first-place vote and totaled 13 points.  Following Syracuse is Niagara, which collected 10 points, followed by Robert Morris (7 points) and Wayne State (4 points).

Exhibition contests kick off the start of the CHA season on Saturday as Wilfrid Laurier travels to Erie to face Mercyhurst at 2 p.m, while Wayne State makes the trek to Toronto to face York at 7 p.m.  The regular season will start the following weekend with all five institutions in action in non-conference matches.  Mercyhurst will host St. Cloud State, while Niagara will take on Quinnipiac.

Robert Morris faces Providence, as Wayne State will drop the puck against Bemidji State.  All four of those series will be a two-game series.  Syracuse will play a single game on Oct. 1, as the Orange will host Northeastern.

The 2011 Tournament will take place in Syracuse, N.Y. at Tennity Rink with the first round taking place on March 4.  The semifinals will be the next night on March 5, with the championship game o March 6.

- From CHA news release

2010-11 College Hockey America Preseason Coach’s Poll

(First Place votes)

1.                        Mercyhurst (4)                        16

2.                        Syracuse (1)                        13

3.                        Niagara                        10

4.                        Robert Morris                        7

5.                        Wayne State                        4