D-III Men’s Week In Review: Raiders Rock, Polars Bears Pounce, & The Cadets Celebrate!

MSOE defeats & ties #3 Aurora in a wild weekend series

As usual, the NCHA has been a gauntlet this season, remaining the deepest conference in men’s Division III hockey. Milwaukee School of Engineering (8-11-2) hosted #3 Aurora (18-3-0) this past weekend and it was a war as always on the score sheet and the penalty sheet. MSOE with nine penalties including a hitting-from-behind game misconduct, Aurora with eight minor penalties.

The anomaly in this game was the fact that Aurora outshot MSOE 46-23, but Aurora goaltenders only made 7 saves on 10 shots & 9 saves on 13 shots respectively.

The Raiders took a 3-0 lead early in the 2nd period, scoring a pair of shorthanded goals in the process. Alex Thundercloud (quite the name here), got the Raiders on the board a quick three minutes into the game, followed by his teammate Rylan Jockims scoring shorthanded in the final minute of the opening period. Seth Bernard then tallied the third MSOE goal just under three minutes into the 2nd period, also shorthanded.

Aurora would get on the board on the powerplay less than a minute after falling behind 3-0, Jakson Kirk getting his first of two in the game. Shortly after, Conor Ronayne cut the lead to one just before the midway mark of the period, but it wouldn’t last for long. MSOE came right back and doubled the lead once again, Jacob Bosse at 11:56, scoring the fourth goal of the period, making it 4-2 Raiders.

Ronayne would tally his second of the game about six minutes later, cutting the lead back to one, making it 4-3 until the Spartans took a costly penalty. In the final minute of the period, Cole Beilke got the lead back to two, scoring on the PP as mentioned.

The final period of play would feature four goals, the first coming just over a minute into the period, MSOE’s Charles Fink scored, making it 6-3 Raiders, continuing the upset watch in Geneva. Kirk scored his second for Aurora a mere three minutes later, making it 6-4, but once again, a Spartan penalty became costly as the Raiders made it a three-goal lead once again, scoring was Eddie Shepler on the PP, making it 7-4 and nearly too much to overcome for Aurora at this point in the game. The Spartans capitalized on a Raider penalty late in the game, scoring was Chayce Schmidt to make it 7-5, but that wouldn’t amount to a victory in the end as the Raiders pull off the shocking upset of Aurora who entered the weekend 18-3-0, including four wins over Adrian College (17-5-1).

The second game of the weekend had some added shock as well, despite losing the shootout, MSOE pulled off a tie on day two after leading 2-1 late as Aurora’s Hassan Akl tied it up 2-2 with just under three minutes left in the game on shockingly, the powerplay. The NCHA was on full upset watch once again on Saturday just as they were Friday since MSOE took a 2-0 lead after the 1st period of play. Aurora scored the lone 2nd period goal and then as mentioned, tied it late on the PP before going scoreless in overtime. Aurora took the shootout 3-2 as it took a little bit, trading goals and saves on both ends.

Currently, the Spartans sit 4th in the standings after their tough weekend, two points behind St. Norbert, three behind Trine, & nine behind Adrian.

For MSOE, they’re 5th with an 11 point deficit to Aurora as the “big four” have separated themselves once again this season from the rest of the pack, but as we just saw, this conference has plenty of depth and don’t be surprised if something like this happens once we reach the playoffs in chase of the Harris Cup.

Bowdoin continues their NESCAC hunt, defeats #2 Hamilton & Amherst

The Polar Bears of Bowdoin (14-5-1) have had an exceptional season so far that’s slightly flown under the radar as Hamilton College (16-2-2) has stolen most of the show this season as they’ve been ranked the highest thus far coming off their NESCAC championship last season. Recently, we’ve seen Hamilton pull out some close wins late when trailing and/or tied in a close game, but this time was different in their trip to Maine.

Bowdoin defeated Gustavus earlier this season in the Bowdoin/Colby event and they also had a blowout 6-2 victory over #5 Univ. of New England, establishing themselves in the non-conference as well as conference.

This past Friday, we got to see the top two NESCAC teams face off in an absolute battle. The game was extremely tight, shots fairly even with Hamilton winning that category 26-25. There was also a major penalty in this game coming in the 2nd period, a hitting-from-behind called against Bowdoin, giving the Continentals a five-minute penalty that the Polar Bears killed off.

Bowdoin got the scoring started in the opening period, Louie Marcellino scored just under eight minutes into the game, putting his team up 1-0. There wouldn’t be any scoring for the rest of the period as we headed to the middle frame 1-0 Bowdoin.

Hamilton would capitalize on a Polar Bear penalty in the 2nd period, Alex Danis tied it up 1-1 om the PP just over seven minutes into the period. Following the tying goal, we wouldn’t see any scoring until the final minute of the game as Bowdoin’s Michael Dinges scored his 5th goal in four games, winning it for Bowdoin and getting them closer to the Continentals in the NESCAC standings, a mere five points behind as we reach closer the end of the regular season.

Bowdoin in this game was able to hold Hamilton’s star forward Luke Tchor pointless, which all things considered has been a victory in itself for opposing teams this season.

This coming weekend, Hamilton has another road trip, this time in Tufts on Friday and then Connecticut College on Saturday before they close out the season next weekend with Williams & Middlebury both at home in Sage.

For Bowdoin, they’ve got a road trip to Connecticut, visiting Trinity on Friday & Wesleyan on Saturday. The following week, they host Connecticut College & Tufts to close out the regular season.

Norwich defeats #10 Babson for their first signature win in the Dawes’ era

A new era for Norwich Men’s & Women’s hockey began this year as coaching changes were made for various reasons on both sides. Justin Simpson replacing Sophie Leclerc-Doherty as she departed due to the expected birth of her second child and Cam Ellsworth being replaced by alum & national championship-winning Head Coach Dominick Dawes, formerly of Neumann & most recently Stevenson.

So far this season, the Cadets have had a solid season in the inaugural season of the Little East Conference with their two losses coming to Babson (16-3-2) & UMass-Boston (13-7-1). Recently, we had a showdown in Kreitzberg Arena in their whiteout game against the #12 ranked Babson Beavers who are 2nd in the LEC, five points now behind Norwich after the loss. Up until this point, Norwich had been winning the games they should, but not yet had that ‘signature’ win of the Dawes’ era.

On Saturday, Norwich goaltender Sami Molu stole the show, making 38 saves on 39 shots in the victory. The Cadets were outshot 39-16 and despite Babson’s great performance, kept the puck out of the net as needed and made it one step closer to securing home ice for the Little East playoffs.

This game featured early action as Norwich took a quick 2-0 lead in the 1st period, Nick Cordeiro scoring just over five minutes in & teammate Boyd Stahlbaum on the powerplay doubled the Cadet lead just over 11 minutes in, making it 2-0 Norwich. Quickly after Stahlbaum’s PP goal, Babson’s Ryan Murphy notched one home to cut the lead in half and make it a 2-1 game which would hold up until late in the 2nd period.

With under five seconds left in the 2nd period, the eventual sealing goal was scored as the Cadets’ Devon Thibodeau scored on the powerplay once again, making it 3-1 Norwich and the eventual final goal scored in the contest. In this game the Beavers only took two penalties, but Norwich capitalized on both of them, proving to be deciding factor in the game outside of Molu’s incredible display between the pipes.

Next up for Norwich is a pair of road games in which they should win quite handily in theory. They visit Western Connecticut (2-19-0) & Keene State (6-15-0) in hopes of continuing their race for home-ice in the playoffs.

For Babson, they’ve got a tougher stretch at home with UMass-Boston (13-7-1) coming to town & UMass-Dartmouth (10-11-0).

NPI Note

Since our very own Scott Huston is releasing his newest men’s bracketology today for February 11, 2026, please refer to his article for your NPI needs as he does an exceptional job analyzing and predicting the potential outcomes we could see from each conference and seeding from potential at-large bids. These can be found on our site homepage or the sidebar to the right of this article (below if on mobile). To check out our latest women’s bracketology article released Monday, February 9, 2026, click here.