ACHA teams experience ranking reorganization

The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) experienced a shakeup this past weekend when the top two teams, Penn State and Iowa State, both lost. The No. 1 Icers dropped two road games to No. 3 Michigan-Dearborn and No. 4 Eastern Michigan. The No. 2 Cyclones split their weekend series with No. 9 Illinois.

But when the new rankings came out yesterday, Iowa State climbed up into the No. 1 position despite its loss to Illinois. The Icers, on the other hand, dropped down to No. 3 while Michigan-Dearborn jumped ahead of them to No. 2. Ohio University rose from No. 5 to No. 4, replacing Eastern Michigan, who fell to the fifth spot even though it beat Penn State and West Virginia over the weekend.

"There's not much you can do about it," Eastern Michigan coach Mike Eller said. "In my opinion, there are five teams here, and any one of them on any given night can beat the other.

"You have five teams competing for the national championship. (The ranking) doesn't make a difference."

Not everyone is happy with the new rankings, however. Actually, one coach was even miffed with the last rankings that were released on Jan. 21.

"I don't think that Iowa State should have been No. 2 to begin with," Michigan-Dearborn coach Joe Aho said.

Aho based his opinion on the fact that Iowa State has gone a combined 0-3 against Michigan-Dearborn and Penn State this season and 1-1 against Eastern Michigan. Aho also said teams should watch out for Ohio, which plays Michigan-Dearborn this weekend.

"I rank Ohio really high," Aho said. "They haven't lost since October."

Ohio's last defeat was at the hands of the Icers, 6-4, on Oct. 31. Two weeks ago the Bobcats took two games from Eastern Michigan, which was probably why Ohio moved ahead of the Eagles in the standings.

Because of the same high level of play shown by the top teams in the ACHA, the race for a higher ranking is heating up as each school prepares for Nationals. But none of the top five teams should get comfortable with their new spots in the rankings just yet. That's because there are a number of key head-to-head matchups to come over the next couple weeks.

This weekend, the Icers host No. 7 Delaware. The next weekend they go back out on the road to play Ohio and West Virginia. Michigan-Dearborn plays Ohio this weekend and Eastern Michigan the next. Iowa State won't play another top-five team until the postseason gets underway.

Both Michigan-Dearborn and Eastern Michigan gained some momentum with their wins over Penn State, but Aho and Eller know there are too many tough games left to get overly excited about knocking off the No. 1 team.

"There's no let up," Aho said. "If we think that win (against Penn State) did something, we're going to lose (our next) four games. It will give us some confidence, but we can't look too much into it."

Eller was a little more optimistic about his team's victory over the Icers.

"Beating Penn State this past weekend was a big game for us," Eller said, "and it was also revenge since they beat us earlier this season.

"Numbers one through five are all pretty even. I wouldn't want to bet on any of those teams."