The UM-St. Louis Inline Hockey Team fell short at the National Tournament in Ft. Collins, Colorado on April 16. Sixteen of the nation's best teams were invited to compete. UM-St. Louis lost in the opening round to Hofstra University by a score of 7-6, despite leading 6-5 late in the third period. The loss was a surprise to the team, who may have gone to the tournament a little bit too confident, according to goalie Thomas Ames.
"It's hard to repeat as National Champions. Maybe we came in a bit too cocky. We should have taken our time and scouted the opponents more. National competition is much more difficult than Regionals, and we were still playing like it was Regionals," Ames said.
Despite the loss, the inline hockey team has nothing to feel ashamed about. They finished the year with a 23-7-3 overall record, including a 9-2-1 record against opponents from the Great Plains Collegiate Inline Hockey Leauge - including Washington University, Saint Louis University, and Truman Sate. The Regional Championship was a first for the team, according to team captain James Wetton.
"We had a great season and we won the Regional Championship for the first time. Unfortunately at Nationals we didn't play well, but a lot of guys are coming back so we'll be here again next year. It was harder going into the tournament as National Champions; last year we entered kind of under the radar. We had a target on our back this year," Wetton said.
The inline team also added several individual successes to their Regional Championship. Wetton, who scored 42 points on the year, ranked 6th in the nation offensively. Will Roestel, another offensive player, also entered the National Rankings at 13th with 39 points. The two were joined by Ames who qualified as the seventh best goalie in the country. Ames had a goals-against average of 2.74 and notched 220 saves on the year (it should be mentioned that the number one, two, and four ranked goalies all played less than five games).
While Wetton and Roestel ranked first and second in regionals, other UM-St. Louis players also ranked highly in Regional competition. Jon Girard scored 21 points on the year for an 11th place ranking and Zach Stacy and Doug Purk each scored 19 points to tie for 13th. Ames finished just behind Washington University's goalie Dave Garland for second.
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