Well MCLA fans we have come to the end of the season, and man has it been a wild ride. We had upsets, we had some of the best semi-final games in recent memory. We crowned perennial powers. Thursday and Saturday was an extremely fun time for a guy like me. All four Final Four games were close and exciting.
This year’s Finals were both between the #1 and #2 seeds. On the D1 side the reining National Champions Colorado St. took on their biggest rival, in the country and in their own conference, Colorado. The only two teams in my mind that had an outright shot at the finals were these two teams.
In the MCLA Colorado is generally consider the little brother to CSU. They got to the National Championship after thwarting Arizona St. in an all defensive war of attrition. They won the game 5-4 in the waning minutes of the game. The Red Hot Buffs as they became known this year really seemed to be in top form going into Saturday night’s game against the one team that has beaten them twice this year. This would have the Buff’s revenge for the hurtful regular season loss and the close RMLC tournament loss.
Colorado St. has become what teams in the D1 MCLA strive to be like. They were the best team on both sides of the ball. The outright #1 team in the nation and the team that has taken up Michigan’s mantle of dominance. On Saturday they were going for their third win against Colorado this season.
The National Championship game was another defensive battle for most of the game. It was such a defensive battle that at the half it was 4-0 in Colorado St.’s favor. The Buff’s had difficulty getting the ball in the back of the net, coupled with an extremely stellar defense and goaltending the Buff’s chances were low coming out of the half and did not improve in the end.
The second half was more or less the same as the first half. No one allowed a goal in the third but in the fourth the proverbial floodgates opened as much as these stellar defenses would allow, with 5 goals being scored 3 by CSU and 2 by CU.
The Colorado St. Rams have now won back to back National titles. The only other team to do that was Michigan, who won three titles in a row before leaving the MCLA ranks to play in the NCAA. The final score was 7-2. The Buff’s were held to 2 goals, which is the lowest number of goals scored by a team in the finals.
