It’s been recently decided that the Central Connecticut men’s soccer team will not be eligible to participate in the 2012 post-season due to a low academic progress rating (APR).

The Blue Devils soccer team has a combine APR score of 899 at the end of the 2010-2011 season, but to qualify the team must pass with a 900 at the end of four years, putting CCSU just one point shy of the required mark. Appeals have been made, but the NCAA on Academic Performance has denied the appeal requests.

“We accept the decision and will continue to make it a priority to meet all of the APR requirements as set forth by the NCAA,” said Paul Schlickmann, CCSU’s Athletic Director, in the athletic department’s press release.

The APR rating done by the NCAA each term and is used as an indicator for student athlete graduation rates amongst the Division I schools.

According to the press release, the soccer team’s score wouldn’t have kept them from the post season, but last year the NCAA took a vote and decided to ban schools from the post season that didn’t make the qualifying scores. Prior to 2011 the Blue Devils would have been given what the NCAA calls a historical penalty, which results in simple warning as well as an Academic Performance Plan from the team.

“We have implemented a specific plan of improvement for the men’s soccer program which has initially proven to be successful,” Schlickmann said.  “We have informed the team of the NCAA’s decision and laid out a course of action for their continued academic and competitive success.”

Though an academic plan has been put into effect, the soccer team’s overall GPA isn’t necessarily low. For the last two semesters the team has averaged a strong 3.0 GPA, while over the four-year qualifying period the team average has been slightly higher at a 3.10.

“Our recent performance in the classroom has been very strong, as our team grade point average continues to show,” Schlickmann said in the press release.  “The academic success of our student-athletes and adherence to NCAA APR standards is, and always has been, an institutional and departmental priority for Central.  Our primary strategic objective is the educational experience of our student-athletes.  That is paramount to everything we do.”

While the team GPA remains high enough, CCSU’s soccer team is known for having multiple student-athletes from overseas, which adds to the program’s high transfer rate. The high amount of transfers from the team tallies up points against CCSU and adds to the loss of eligibility points in the NCAA.

Even though the Blue Devils will be forced to sit out post-season play including any run at the Northeast Conference Championship, they will still start regular season play next fall.

The CCSU baseball team is set to kick off their season this weekend at Navy, and will do so after benefiting from a nearly non-existant winter.

A normal off-season for the Blue Devils is usually spent in the bubble, but head Coach Charlie Hickey is very optimistic given his team’s opportunity to practice on the field since coming back from the break.

“Obviously the weather this year probably has been as good as a we’ve had in 10 years,” he said. “This has allowed us an opportunity to practice outside on our field and in somewhat comfortable circumstances.”

Although in years past CCSU has been able to get on the field, Coach Hickey emphasized that it usually doesn’t benefit the players due to the rough conditions. But, with most of the last two weeks finding temperatures in the fifties, the pitchers have been throwing their bullpen sessions outdoors, which allows for more preparation as the season gets under way.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been outside before we’ve gone to Navy,” senior starting pitcher Harry Glynne said. “But it definitely allowed us to prepare so we can go down there and hopefully get some wins.”

The team has also been playing simulated games, also a rarity this early in the season.

“There’s no substitute for playing an actual game,” Hickey said. “But, we’re going out there playing seven innings here, nine or ten innings there. We’ve limited our pitchers in terms of breaking balls given that it’s still February, but our offense is really starting to develop being that they’ve seen some live pitching, and have been getting a lot of reps out there.”

Leading the offense this year are seniors Mitch Wells (third base) and Jake Matuszak (center field). Both players were the top two hitters on the team, batting .360 and .328 respectively.

Sophomores Anthony Turgeon, Dylan Delacruz and J.P. Sportman return as likely starters for the Blue Devils. As freshmen, they batted .320, .308, and .289 respectively.

“As freshmen, those three carried us for a long time last year,” Hickey said. “When all is said and done, the three of them are going to be pretty darn good baseball players. With their work ethic and ability, it’s going to be awesome to have them for three more years.”

The good weather has also allowed Hickey the time to see what lineups will work where, and who will fit into certain situations.

“I always try to build a lineup keeping in mind the guys hitting before and after a guy to see what’s most productive,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of chances to create some versatility, look at a lot of different things in different places.”

For pitching, the Blue Devils will lose a key piece to their starting rotation with Nick Nuemann out for the season with Tommy John surgery. Nuemann sustained the injury during the summer while pitching in the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL). Last year, he posted a 5-3 record with 2.61 ERA.

“He was going to be at the top end of our rotation, so it definitely hurts,” Glynne said. “But, with other guys coming back like [Todd] Savatsky, [Tom] Coughlin, along with the talented freshmen we have, I think we’re going to try our best to make up for losing him.”

Glynne is in the final year of his eligibility, and will be a huge piece to CCSU’s rotation. He boasted a 2.65 ERA, and let up just 51 hits in 57 2/3 innings. In terms of the entire staff, the opposition had the most trouble against Glynne, hitting just .243 off of him.

“I definitely want to build off of last year,” Glynne said. “I thought I had a good year, and I improved a lot over the summer, so I want to take that into this year and come out strong.”

As for the rest of the starting rotation, Savatsky, Jack Greenhouse, Coughlin, and freshman Cody Brown should all see starts over the course of the season. Savatsky had the lowest ERA of anyone on the staff last year, going 7-4 with a 2.57 ERA, and let up 66 hits in 70 innings pitched.

Left-hander, Greenhouse missed all of last year after recovering from a torn ACL, but led the staff in ERA in 2010 at 3.86 while winning four and losing two. Coughlin will need to improve on his freshman campaign, where he went 2-2 with a 5.20 ERA.

Another huge part of the 2012 baseball team is their freshman. The Blue Devils have ten true freshman, some of which could have a big impact in the early going.

Of the ten freshman, six are pitchers, four of which are left handers. There are also two brothers, Casey and Cody Brown, who are from Gloucester Catholic high school in New Jersey, who won the State Parochial B title this past year, and were ranked 24 in the nation by USA today.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a freshman class come in with so much talent before,” Glynne said. “They all have matured for the short while they’ve been here, so hopefully they continue to do well and start off good early on.”

The team opens up in Annapolis, MD this weekend against Navy with three games against the Midshipmen, one nine inning, and two seven inning games. They will follow with a game at Hartford before they travel to Villanova to play in a tournament against Temple, St. Joseph’s, as well as the Wildcats.

“I’m not blind to the fact that there are teams in the conference that have a two week head start, but, that being said, it hasn’t hurt us in the past, and has never been an excuse for us,” said Hickey.

The Blue Devils’ first home game will be on March 14, against Albany, followed by their first conference action on March 16-18 at Sacred Heart.

It’s usually this time in the winter sports season that we start talking about trade deadlines. For teams and free agents it’s a stressful time and last ditch effort to acquire big name players and from the business side of things it’s just another day on the calendar to bring the sport hype.

Usually the trade deadline could be pretty exciting, but alas this year was kind of a dud in the way of the NHL.

A lot of the major trades talked about happened before the deadline, so by the actual deadline there was nothing to really get excited about.

In fact, I was so bored with the whole thing that I began reading about baseball, yes I thought it was so bad I broke away from hockey for baseball.

Mainly I read about the Mets and how like every other year, they’re looking to turn this season around. I read about Fred Wilpon’s finances and the rumors about David Wright’s “inevitable” trade, but somehow Ryan Braun came up in my Google search.

Ryan Braun, who was set free of any performance enhancing drug charges a short while ago, is still making news because he called out and accused the MLB of a preach of confidentiality and tampering with his two cups of urine evidence.

Reading the way in which the MLB handles the urine testing process was like something you’d see in a movie and was pretty entertaining I won’t lie.

According to what I read, Braun had to be watched when he gave up the sample, which was then split into two cups, in front of him. The cups of urine were also given a handler which would take the evidence to FedEx to be shipped out for testing in Canada.

I couldn’t believe the amount of detail that went into testing for PED’s, but it makes sense. The man’s urine came back with a 20-1 ratio of testosterone and tested positive for out outer-body substance, meaning his body did not produce that testosterone, which makes sense since the usual ratio of testosterone is 4-1.

It’s obvious that he was taking something and yet he gets off! Why? Because of a technicality. Braun was let off all because the handler took the urine sample home with him for 44 unaccounted hours because he didn’t want the samples to sit at a FedEx over the weekend.

I don’t believe athletes should be using PED’s, I think it makes a mockery out of sports and if you’re so self-conscious of your ability to play then maybe you shouldn’t be in the league.

Steroid use is talked about constantly so I didn’t really pay much attention to the Braun case, but thanks to the boring excuse for a trade deadline I was forced to. Since I took the time to read about it I can honestly say I don’t agree with the Braun decision.

He was let go because a man thought he was doing his job the best to his ability and now he’s accused the league which is continuing to let him play because of possible evidence tampering.

The MLB has come out and said that they stand firm that his sample wasn’t tampered with and they believe their process works, there’s no way it can’t, it’s that meticulous.

But let Braun deny the use of PED’s, it’ll prove interesting to see how he performs on the field this season, because all eyes are going to be on him.

For Kenny Horton, Robby Ptacek, and David Simmons, the 78-61 victory over Wagner on Saturday afternoon was likely their last basketball game in Detrick Gymnasium. The three seniors were honored in front of the crowd of 2,712 fans, the largest out of any other home game this season.

“It was overwhelming for me,” Horton said. “To know that it’s probably the last time we’re going to play in front of all those people. To have that type of atmosphere here … I was happy to have as many people as we had today to come out and support us.”

All three seniors started the game for CCSU (13-15, 10-8 NEC), and right off the bat, the trio along with Kyle Vinales and Malcom McMillan wasted no time in getting ahead of the Seahawks (24-5, 15-3 NEC). Ptacek drove to the hoop for the first basket, followed by another drive by Simmons. Horton then made a jumpshot, immediately followed by a three-pointer at the 17:14 mark, which ignited the near-capacity crowd and prompted Wagner head coach Dan Hurley to take a timeout with the score at 9-0.

Neither team scored again until the 14:56 mark when Ptacek made a basket, quickly followed by two foul shots by Vinales to put the score at 13-0. The Seahawks finally got on the board with 13:49 remaining, and wound up scoring seven points in a row.

For the rest of the first half, the Blue Devils defense was relentless and unforgiving. If Wagner made a mistake, a CCSU defender would capitalize. The closest the Seahawks came to catching CCSU was at the 9:20 mark when the deficit was four points.

The Blue Devils answered by going on a 12-2 run to put the score at 29-15 with 2:33 remaining. A basket by Ptacek, three foul shots by Vinales, and another three pointer by Horton gave the Blue Devils a 15 point lead going into halftime.

Not much changed in the second half. To put it simply, none of the changes that the Seahawks implemented against the Blue Devils worked. Every single player continued to play as hard as they did all game, as the lead grew to 28 points with 9:18 remaining in the game, which was about when Wagner decided to use their press defense against CCSU, which finally enabled them to start a comeback.

Over the next seven minutes, Wagner was able to cut the lead to single digits at the 1:59 mark. Wagner continued to foul CCSU in hopes that they would miss free throws, which they did not.

The Blue Devils shot 23-for-24 on the foul line, the only miss by Vinales. CCSU also stepped up their defense in the final minutes, only allowing one basket, and two free throws in the final 3:17 of play.

The exclamation point came with 20 seconds remaining when Joe Efese caught a pass underneath the basket from Adonis Burbage, and slammed it home with two hands to give them the 78-61 victory.

“What you witnessed today was Central Connecticut basketball at its best,” Head Coach Howie Dickenman said. “Defensively, we followed every rule that we have in defending all types of sets.”

The defense forced Wagner to turn the ball over 22 times, even though the Blue Devils turned it over 23 themselves. Horton, who was pulled from the game against Wagner earlier this year due to a lack of defense, made the biggest impact by getting four steals and five blocks while adding 22 points. This performance follows his Thursday night performance against Mount St. Mary’s when he scored 39 points while pulling down 13 rebounds, six steals, and five assists. Coach Dickenman said the last couple of games he had been playing like “the player of the year.”

Last year, the Blue Devils lost a heartbreaking game to Quinnipiac on senior day when CCSU said farewell to Shemik Thompson. This year, it was different, sending off two fifth-year seniors, and one fourth-year senior, all of which turned in impressive performances.

Simmons finished the game with 10 points and eight rebounds, while Ptacek finished with 16 points, five rebounds, and three steals. Vinales finished with the second highest point total with 21.

“It was just a nice send off for those three seniors,” Dickenman said. “I’m pretty sure David Simmons’ 35 minutes was the most he’s had all year …  All he did was battle out there.”

What is likely the most interesting part about the big win was that the Blue Devils had an extremely light practice the night before, which puts into perspective just how well prepared they were.

“[Assistant Coach] Steve Treffiletti had the preparation for this game, all we did was walk through it last night,” Dickenman said. “Then, we shot 25 jump shots, walked through it again, and then we shot 24 minutes of free throws, and that was our practice. No need for any perspiration, no showering, all we did was walk through it.”

For the NEC tournament, the Blue Devils got extremely lucky travel-wise, as Monmouth defeated LIU-Brooklyn on Saturday night. This means the Hawks get the sixth seed and travel to Robert Morris, while CCSU falls to the seventh seed and will face Wagner again on Thursday night.

“I think this was a springboard for whoever we play next,” Dickenman said. “I’m looking forward to it. I just wish we had played better earlier in the season, because what you saw the last few games was how I expected them to play during that stretch.”

The Women’s basketball team didn’t say goodbye to just any senior this past weekend, the young team was saying farewell to a veteran leader who’s accomplishment off the court mean more to the squad than anything she’s done during game time.

“This year the girls are just a great group of girls, so it’s going to be sad leaving them but, we battled. These girls have so much heart and determination that I know they’re going to be successful after this year,” said graduating senior Rachel Chandler.

Chandler has had a lucrative career as a Blue Devil, playing for the team during some of its best seasons, but this year as the sole senior it was more about mentoring her young teammates than it was about tallying minutes and points.

“I still say I know Rachel didn’t play a lot of minutes, but the type of person she was and how hard she worked at practice all the time is a big reason we won games,” said Head Coach Beryl Piper. “It’s not necessarily that she had a lot of playing time during the games, but the things she did in practice every day and how she presented herself, those are the things that make your team into a winning team she helped change the culture of this program.”

Despite the team being out of the running for the Northeast Conference tournament, the team still brought whatever they had to the court and came out on top of Wagner by 13, 79-66.

The two teams were back and forth for the opening minutes of the game until they had the score tied at eight. However, Wagner went on a mid-half run which put them ahead of the Blue Devils first 21-8 and eventually 24-10.

“I think we just knew we had to pick it up and it’s the second to last game of the season we didn’t want to go out like just not giving it our all because we could beat that team pretty easily if we played hard,” said Jessica Babe.

Babe finished the game with 11 rebounds, 11 points and 10 assists, which makes her the first women’s basketball player in the school’s history to record a triple-double.

“I think that point scoring is obviously really important, but I like that I’m able to say that I can distribute and do hustle plays,” said Babe.

The Blue Devils, despite being down by half did manage to come back, spread out the opportunities and find a scoring drive of their own to cut the deficit to one, 28-27 headed into half time.

At the beginning of the second half the Blue Devils took the lead from the Seahawks for the first time in the game with a layup made by Danielle Davis from the paint. The one point advantage didn’t last long, and eventually the game was tied up again at 31.

A jumper made by freshman, Johnna Fisher put CCSU up by two, which the team began to build on, eventually taking the lead for good. Fisher had a good offensive game for the Blue Devils, tallying 16 points and seven rebounds in the weekend win.

“Johnna started out strong for us,” said Piper. “Johnna had seven rebounds and 16 points … so it was nice to see the young kids step up and I think honestly that this is what will help us next year because putting points on the board was always the thing that just crushed us.”

Another player who put up big numbers against Wagner was Lauren Arobgast. The sophomore forward posted 27 points, 18 of which came in the second half, with eight rebounds. Arbogast led her team and the game with points made.

“I just knew we could run on this team easily,” she said. “So I just got out and my teammates did a good job at giving me the ball and my shots were just falling … I guess.”

CCSU may not have made the tournament this season, but with only one senior leaving the lineup, a healthy roster could eventually mean big things for the team.

“I said all along if we could get into the playoffs and have everybody be healthy there’s not one team in this conference that would want to play us,” said Piper. “Unfortunately we had more people get hurt and we never really got to that point and then all of a sudden we didn’t get into the playoffs, which is really disappointing for everybody because I think this team really could’ve done some damage in the playoffs if we all if we were all healthy…so now it’s a new season.”

The familiar beats of Mac Miller’s “Knock Knock” floated out of the locker room intertwined with celebratory cheers as the lights in Liberty Rink in the Danbury Ice Arena were shut off and the athletes were left to toast their advancement to the next step of ACHA regionals in a desolate rink.

It wasn’t the CCSU team rejoicing in the win; it was their opponents, the Bryant Bulldogs, who squelched all hopes of a Blue Devil run at Nationals in Florida with a Saturday night 5-4 victory.

Even though CCSU played a virtually clean first period, with each team only tallying one penalty a piece, the team couldn’t capitalize on the full strength five-on-five situations.

Bryant struck first with 15:01 and it was apparent that CCSU was having trouble. The team couldn’t clear the puck from their own defensive zone, and once it was moved through the neutral zone and into the attack zone, the opportunities didn’t last long.

“Where we got in trouble a little bit is we struggled to get the puck out and we really didn’t move the puck up as well as we should have,” said Head Coach Ben Adams. “ … From our blue line out we did a really good job at moving pucks and putting pucks in the space and generating opportunities for us. It was getting pucks to our blue lines is where I thought we struggled with a bit today.”

About midway through the period CCSU began to get better chances in their own offensive zone. The Blue Devils began to find a good rhythm and crisp passing skills in front of Bryant’s goalie, which led to Kevin Paglinco’s opening goal with 8:38 to play before the first intermission, from just beyond the right faceoff circle.

The tie was short lived however, and again Bryant began to out-skate CCSU, taking the lead back at 4:46. Much didn’t change through the majority of the second period, the Blue Devils power play, which is usually productive couldn’t get anything going and soon the Bulldogs had the two-goal advantage.

As the game’s final intermission was nearing frustrations were running high and CCSU was looking for another chance to get the puck to the net. That chance came with less than three minutes to play in the period with a shot taken by Jon Knobloch from the middle and off a faceoff pass from his line mate.

The momentum continued early into the third with a game tying score from Nick Centore, but again CCSU had trouble clearing the puck from their own defensive zone and Bryant managed to net two more goals to take the lead back for the second time.

“We did a lot of things right they just capitalized on the one or two mishaps that we had. With a team like that in a situation like this you never know what you’re gonna get and Bryant rose to the occasion and I give them a lot of credit,” said Adams.

With more than half of the period to play Conor Stanley capitalized on a Bryant penalty with a power play goal, but CCSU never managed to take control and inch out in front of the Bulldogs.

“As the game progressed with the exception of the first period I thought we did a really good job at controlling the blue lines, keeping pucks deep, keeping the pressure in the offensive zone going and really transitioning it well to the neutral zone to capitalize on their mishaps on not getting pucks deep,” he said.

In a list stitch effort Adams made the decision to pull goalie, John Palmieri, but nothing came of it. CCSU continued to fight until the end and through multiple last second game stoppages, but it wasn’t enough.

The team must now look past the notion of not making Nationals for the second year in a row and look toward the Super East tournament in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., next weekend.

“It gives you something to be proud about still,” said Adams. “You’re still playing for a championship be it’s a league championship versus a national tournament, but the same teams we’re gonna face next week would be the same caliber teams we play out there. So it’ll still be a good gauge [of play] and it’ll be our way to really sticking it to some teams that have a chance to go to nationals.”

That tournament is the team’s last attempt at a title before the 2011-2012 season comes to an end.

Senior Ken Horton had a career night last Thursday at home with a personal high of 39-points to go along with 13 rebounds, five assists and six steals as the Blue Devils went on to overpower Mount Saint Mary’s 78-63.

CCSU is now 13-15 overall and 10-8 in the conference after their victory over Wagner on Senior Day Saturday at home.  They rank seventh going into the tournament next Thursday against Wagner.

Horton’s 39 points marks the fourth-best single game performance in school history along with surpassing 1,900 career points in the win.  He was 15-20 from the field, 4-8 from beyond the arc, and 5-7 from the free-throw line.

When asked if he knew he was on a record pace Horton simply said, “Records are cool, but I’d rather have a championship.”  His teammate, freshman Kyle Vinales set a freshman school record for most three-pointers in a single season with 69.

The only time in the game that CCSU trailed was when the Mount’s Julian Norfleet started the game with a three pointer.  Vinales answered back with a three of his own, which began the Blue Devils 9-0 run.  CCSU didn’t look back as they finished the high-scoring first half with a 41-33 lead.

Great offense and defense sparked one of CCSU’s best performances of the year.  They assisted on 24 of 30 baskets, which was their second-highest assist total this year.

The team also only turned the ball over seven times to 12 team steals, while Mount Saint Mary’s suffered due to their sloppiness and had 14 turnovers to only two steals.

Passing the ball was another key factor that seemed to throw the Mount Saint Mary’s players off guard, giving many open looks for Central’s shooters.

“One of the keys to the game tonight was executing on offense and making the extra pass and not forcing up shots, “ Horton said.  “Kyle was making good passes, Kyle, Robby [Ptacek] and Malcolm [McMillan], and they set it for us, and finding people.”

Head Coach Howie Dickenman was pleased with their performance. “Tonight you saw Central Connecticut at their best,” Dickenman said.  “We were very unselfish, we set good screens and I really don’t think there was one questionable shot by any of our players.  We were able to drive the ball up the court and thought our defense was pretty good,” he said.

CCSU shot 53.6 percent from the field (30-56) and 50 percent from the three-point line (8-16), while Mount Saint Mary’s shot 47.7 percent from the field (21-44) and 31.6 percent from the three-point line (6-19).

Coming into the second half, the Mount cut it to five points after shaking off an 8-2 run to make it 53-48 with 13:11 left on the game clock. This didn’t faze the Blue Devils as Horton took a deep three, missed, and hustled back in to grab the offensive rebound and put it in for two, which started another 9-0 run.  He was also fouled on the play but was unsuccessful for the three point play.  Horton scored seven of those nine points.

This put the Mountaineers in a hole too deep to climb out of as the Blue Devils had yet another big 8-0 run to close out the visiting team. Ptacek scored six of those eight points.  This was CCSU’s ninth home win of the season.

Horton led the team followed by Vinales with 13 points, 11 assists, and two steals for his first career double-double while Ptacek finished with 17 points, three rebounds, and three steals.

The Mountaineers were led by Norfleet with 20 pints and by junior Raven Barber with 14 points and nine rebounds.

“Kenny was the man tonight,” said Dickenman. He also mentioned what Head Coach Matt Henry from Mount Saint Mary’s said when they were shaking hands, “If Kenny Horton plays that way you’ll win the NEC tournament,” and Dickenman didn’t disagree with him.

With impressive double-digit victories their past two games, the Blue Devil’s will enter tournament as the seventh seed with momentum on their side as the NEC’s begin Thursday.

The CCSU women’s lacrosse team got its first win of the season, first conference win, first win under their new head coach and their first ever win against Bryant with the 11-5 victory over the Bulldogs .

“It’s huge, it’s big for our girls because this year is different,” said head coach Kelly Nangle. “It’s huge for them to see it happen, and think it’s possible, because this is something they’ve never experienced before.”

In each of the last three seasons, the Blue Devils (1-1, 1-0 NEC) lost to Bryant (0-2, 0-1 NEC) by four goals in each game. On Sunday afternoon, there was no question that the entire team was firing on all cylinders.

“I think almost all of our goals were assisted, which is great,” Nangle said. “They’re all playing together, which is what we want.”

CCSU’s Mackenzy Ryan opened up the game with two goals at 27:27, and 26:15 of the first period, both assisted by Ashley Perkoski.

Bryant answered at 23:09 with a free position goal after a foul by CCSU. The Blue Devils added their third goal at 16:38 with a goal by Meaghan McCurry, assisted by Betsy Vendel, which was quickly answered by another free position goal by Bryant to make the score 3-2 at the 14:30 mark.

For the next twenty minutes of play, the Blue Devils simply dominated, with seven unanswered goals. Three of them were from Ashley Mara, two of them were from Ryan, with Perkoski and Vendel adding one each. Perkoski also added three more assists, which gave her one goal and five assists for the game.

“I think everyone is underestimating us a little,” Perkoski said. “We practiced a lot to get where we are right now. I mean, I was happy with my performance, but I was way more happy with the team effort.”

Bryant fought back in the final minutes, but goalie Erin Delancey and the CCSU defense secured the 11-5 victory. Delancey finished with nine saves, seven of them being in the second period.

“Our defense was great,” Nangle said. “I mean, five goals against, I can’t complain about that, I’m really proud of them.”

The Blue Devils get their first victory after suffering an 18-5 loss at Stony Brook, who is 4-0 this season.

“I think playing Stony Brook made us so much better,” Perkoski said. “To go and play a team that is as good as they are just helps us improve so much.”

The Blue Devils will travel to Iona on March 4 before their second home game of the season against Manhattan on March 7. CCSU then goes on a three game road trip in California, facing UC Davis, Fresno State, and St. Mary’s College. They will not play a Northeast Conference match until March 30 when they host Wagner.

“This year, we’ve got new techniques, which people can not break,” Perkoski said. “They can try to break them, they can watch film on us, but I know we’re going to be unstoppable in the NEC’s.”

By the time this article reaches the newsstand, the NBA All-Star game will have come and gone with little more than a ripple on the Richter scale.

Now with all the glory and prominence encompassing NBA All-Star weekend, comes the disappointment of isolated ostracism as the NBA’s most popular player is forced to watch the game next to Keanu Reeves. Jeremy Lin has taken the NBA by storm and it is just another reminder to why it should be mandatory for everybody in the world to love sports.

The storylines that sports produce are unpredictable and amazingly beautiful. No movie producer could have ever created a script in which a 6’3” Taiwanese point guard from Harvard, who was cut by two NBA teams already during the season, could statistically transcend Magic Johnson, Shaq and Michael Jordan but that’s what makes Jeremy Lin’s fable seem so impossible.

Lin has single-handedly made it “cool” to go to Harvard again; Lin’s made us think of Taiwan as more than just a place that has monopolized all the “Made in” tags on just about everything you own, and most importantly Lin is showing not only the Asian population, but everybody what it feels like to be an underdog and take the NBA by storm and its these ascending characteristics and popularity that entitle Jeremy Lin to be playing in the NBA All-Star game.

Now before I delve into the reasons why Jeremy Lin should be participating in the All-Star Game, I must digress with an opinionated disclosure on my overall views of fans voting for All-Star games. Plain and simple: I hate fan voting. Fan voting depreciates the statistical value of an individual’s season and turns an All-Star Game into nothing more than a popularity contest.

Letting fans decide these procedures meant that in 2011, Derek Jeter and his awful first half numbers were selected to promenade around the MLB All-Star game as if he actually deserved to be there. The list of these atrocious preferences can go on and on as fans painstakingly click on the most revered name on the all-star ballot rather than the players that actually deserve it.

The last reason I have an utter disdain for fan voting is that the Hall of Fame Selection Committee uses All-Star game appearances as a pillar of judgment unto which votes are cast. That would be like if an individual where applying to Harvard and fit all the educational and extra-curricular requirements needed but Harvard didn’t allow the student in because he didn’t win Prom King.

Phew! I feel a lot better now that that’s off my chest. Unfortunately, my rant cannot undo the current popularity based format of the All-Star game so whether I like it or not, the most popular players in the NBA are voted in. It’s safe to presume that Jeremy Lin is the most popular player in the NBA right now thus he needs to be in the All-Star game.

For this year’s All-Star game, fan voting ended on Feb. 1 while the game itself was not played until Feb. 26. In Jeremy Lin’s case, he didn’t even make his first career start until Feb. 6. With this being formulated, if the fan voting went until Feb. 14, for example, Linsanity would have been in full effect and Jeremy Lin would have absolutely been voted into the All-Star game.

Heck, it took the kid three NBA starts before his jersey was the highest selling jersey in the NBA. So I have no doubt the voters would have showed up in droves begging to make Lin a participant in the All-Star game.

His statistics through his first 11 career starts are all-star worthy. In Lin’s first five NBA starts, he broke Shaq’s all-time record for most points scored in his first five games by netting 136 points (27.2 ppg). In Lin’s last 12 games, which represents the only 12 games of his career in which he saw valuable minutes, Lin averaged 22.6 ppg and 8.7 apg.

From a “this season” standpoint and I know it’s a very small sample size in comparison, but just for argument’s sake, Derrick Rose is averaging 21.8 ppg and 7.7 apg on the season. In terms of the historical magnitude, Lin holds the record for most points and assists through a player’s first 12 career starts topping Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, and John Stockton.

I must re-emphasize that the NBA is a tough and rugged sport that is always evolving so a good 12 game stretch does not make or break a career, but if Jeremy Lin can continue producing at such a ridiculously high level than we may be witnessing a star in the making.

David Stern, David Stern, David Stern tsk tsk tsk. From a strictly marketing and business standpoint, it seems impossible not to have the inclusion of Jeremy Lin down in Orlando this weekend. Ever since David Stern has taken over as the commissioner of the NBA, his major goal has been the globalization of the game of basketball. What better ways to expand the probing tentacles of the NBA than to have Jeremy Lin play in the All-Star game?

The peaking interest of the NBA in Asia is at an apex that hasn’t been attained since Yao Ming entered the league.

Lin played in the Rookies versus Sophomore game and it received the highest rating in its history, and as I mentioned before Lin has had the highest selling jersey in the NBA for the past month. Why not take advantage of this popularity by thrusting Lin into the All-Star game and giving global fans even more incentive to watch and become enthralled not only with Lin but with all the other star players in the NBA?

At first, I was thinking that Stern was avoiding the inclusion of Lin because he would have to create an unprecedented extra roster spot which lays a crack-filled foundation down for future All-Star games. But Joe Johnson of the Atlanta Hawks got injured and could not play in the game leaving the decision to Stern on who to add to the Eastern Conference roster.

No need for any drumrolls or special effects with this decision because Stern picked Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics. Seriously David? How many more fans are going to watch the All-Star game because Rondo is in it? Now think about the global realm of millions that would have tuned into the game if you had selected Jeremy Lin instead. Fiscally, it just makes no sense.

Underdog stories have forever warmed the hearts of the American culture and that’s what makes Jeremy Lin’s story so attractive. He was told in high school he wasn’t good enough to play at the college level. After college, two NBA teams cut him from their roster. His job security was so porous that he didn’t even rent an apartment in NY choosing rather to sleep on teammates and family member’s couches.

Yet, with all this adversity cemented in Lin’s way he has persevered through it all to produce an impact that can be felt around the globe. He has turned himself into an emanating star that no longer walks the street in obscurity but is rather the focus of a whole segmentation of the mass media. All-Star weekend is an event created to let the stars shine, so why not let the brightest star of them all illuminate the basketball globe.

The final ranking period might have ended and regular season play may have come to a close last weekend for the CCSU hockey club, but with a gap in between their last away match against Boston University and the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s regionals the Blue Devils made sure to fit in one more game.

In order to avoid having a weekend completely free of hockey the team set up an inter-state match up with the Southern Connecticut State Owls. While CCSU competes in the DII tier of the ACHA, SCSU competes in DIII, where they topped the regular season rankings enough to get an autobid into the national tournament.

Despite the difference in divisions the Blue Devils couldn’t pull out a final win, dropping to the Owls 7-4.

“The problem tonight is we broke down defensively,” said Mike Joy. “Seven goals obviously against Southern is something we didn’t expect. We had some trouble getting it out of the zone defensively. We were too quick with the puck and we weren’t confident in ourselves. We took for granted the fact that they were Division III. We were looking forward to an easy game but they came out and surprised us.”

Again CCSU got into a second period slump, which SCSU took advantage of and turned into three goals.

“We have some periods where we’re not mentally focused and we certainly have to clean that up and that was addressed tonight in the locker room and hopefully they take a message from that and clean that up,” said Head Coach Ben Adams.

Headed into the first intermission the teams were tied at two apiece. It was CCSU who managed to strike first less than two minutes into the opening period with a power play goal coming from Jon Knobloch, but the Owls were quickly able to counter it with a goal of their own.

CCSU was getting good chances and skating hard in their offensive zone, which Matt Siracusa was able to turn into the team’s second goal of the period with the assist coming from Dustin Rider.

The game against the Owls counted toward the record, but not towards the team’s ranking. Due to that a lot of players who usually don’t suit up were given ice time. Because of that and the fact that the Owls were outscoring the Blue Devils, the top two lines were consistently on the ice, which could’ve attributed to the lull.

CCSU couldn’t capitalize on a major 5-on-3 power play early in the second, but in the same situation SCSU notched their fourth goal of the game.

Penalties again got to be an issue as CCSU tried to fight their way back into the game. The score got to be 2-6 in favor of the Owls before Conor Stanley cut the deficit to three on the power play. The gap was shortened to two, but a breakaway made by SCSU ended the game.

Despite allowing for seven goals Adams made the decision to keep goaltender Greg Coco in net in his first game back. While at an away game in the first half of the season Coco was hit out of the crease, which resulted in surgery and time away from the rink.

“I thought he played alright,” said Adams. “It’s certainly not the Coco we had first semester, but that’s to be expected, he’s had three months off. He’s getting over a pretty serious injury and the reason I kept him in all game is I wanted to see him battle, it was also more of a conditioning, give him some shots get him game action and see if he’ll be ready to go for us next week.”

CCSU will compete in the ACHA regionals in Danbury, CT., with hopes to gain a spot in the national tournament being held in Florida. The first game of next weekend’s tournament will be Saturday night at 8:30 p.m.

“…we know our ultimate goal and that’s to get to Florida and nothing’s gonna stop us,” said Siracusa. “… I really think at times in the game we looked better than we ever have, but we just didn’t finish when we had too but that happens. We just gotta realize that that game when we were playing it meant something but now means nothing. The rankings are over we know who we’re playing and that’s all we have to worry about.”