Mens
Sophomore forward Rocco Dabecco (16 pts.) finishes the regular season as the Beacon’s top point scorer with two goals and fourteen assists. Freshman forwards Adam Larrabee (14 pts.) and Ryan Daust (13 pts.) share the top goal scoring honors with seven each.
All five of the team’s top scorers this season were underclassmen including four freshmen. All five players are expected to return along with the majority of this year’s roster, which had no graduating seniors.
New recruits have been visiting the program all season long from as far away as Texas and as close as our fair city of Boston. In addition to the core of this year’s freshman, next season’s team is expected to feature the best collection of young hockey talent UMass Boston has seen in recent history.
Freshman goaltender Ryan Donovan finishes the regular season with an impressive .911 save and is tied for third in the Men’s ECAC East.
Interim Commissioner Stephen R. Bamford and the ECAC Men’s East Executive Committee announced the seedings for the 2007 ECAC Men’s East Ice Hockey League Playoffs on Feb. 18. Norwich University captured the regular season title and the number one seed for the playoffs after finishing the season with a 14-5-0 league record and a 19-6-0 overall record. The Cadets out scored their opponents 107-53 during the regular season. Norwich will host the number eight seed University of Massachusetts-Boston. The Beacons improved from the 2005-06 season (0-17-2 league, 0-23-3 overall), finishing 3-16-0 in league play and 5-19-1 overall. It will be new Head Coach Peter Belisle’s first time coaching in an ECAC playoff game when he takes his improving young squad to Norwich.
Womens
Senior forward Melissa Belmonte (40 pts.) finishes the regular season as the Lady Beacon’s top point scorer with eighteen goals and twenty two assists. Belmonte has now reached the 40 point mark two years in a row. Senior forward and Belmonte line-mate Andrea Ciarletta (35 pts.) takes the top goal scoring honors with 21 goals. She has scored at least 20 goals and 35 points in every season at UMass Boston. Ciarletta (164 career pts.) and Belmonte(153 career pts.) are one and two on the all time UMass Boston scoring list. Belmonte also finishes this season with the third highest point total in the Women’s ECAC East.
Interim Commissioner of the ECAC Stephen R. Bamford announced the 2007 ECAC Women’s East Ice Hockey League Playoffs seeds on Feb. 18.
UMass Boston, which had a school-record seven-game win streak snapped recently, will play as the fourth seed with 20 points, earning a 10-9-0 conference record and a 13-11-1 mark in all games.
The University of Southern Maine, the Lady Beacon’s first round opponent, finished the 2006-07 campaign with 12 points and a 6-13-0 conference record, 8-16-1 overall. The Huskies will compete as the fifth seed and face the Lady Beacons on Feb. 24.
Seniors Melissa Belmonte and Katie Reardon each played in their 101st career games on Saturday, and have been on the ice for every game in the program’s four-year history.
Sophomore goaltender Jessica Sams finishes the regular season with a stellar 3.15 GAA, and .902 save in 19 games as the Lady Beacon’s top net-minder.