US College Tournament Week Opens Tonight: United East First Round, and Bowdoin Visit No. 1 Tufts
October in American college hockey is when the regular season stops being polite. Tonight, two tournaments start moving at once, and the team everyone is chasing in the NESCAC plays its last game before the postseason.
The United East championship gets going tonight, Tuesday 27 October, with two first-round games. No. 6 Cedar Crest travel to No. 3 Lancaster Bible, and No. 5 Wilson travel to No. 4 Immaculata. The winners go to Saturday’s semifinals, and the prize is real: the championship winner takes the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III championship.
Waiting at the top of the bracket are the team of the conference season. Penn State Harrisburg finished 6-0 in United East play, outscored conference opponents 23-1, and clinched the first regular-season conference title in program history. Goalkeeper Macenzie Mulholland has just been named the conference’s Defensive Player of the Week for the second time this season, after two shutout wins to close the regular season, including a penalty-stroke save against Gwynedd Mercy. Harrisburg host the Immaculata/Wilson winner on Saturday.
Alysa McCarthy led the conference with nine goals in league play, and Mulholland conceded one goal against conference opponents all season, with a.889 save percentage. That’s not a team that stumbled into the top seed.
Defending champions St. Mary’s College of Maryland are the No. 2 seed after scoring 25 goals against conference opponents, with Josie Mascolo’s six leading the way. They get a first-round bye, and they’ll fancy their chances against anyone in a one-off semifinal. Lancaster Bible, the No. 3 seed, are coming off their winningest season since the program was reinstated in 2018, led by Riley Danko’s five conference goals. Immaculata won three of their last four to take the No. 4 seed behind Alexis Andrada’s eight goals against United East opponents. Tonight’s games are the kind that decide whether a good season becomes a memorable one.
Bowdoin at Tufts, under lights. Elsewhere tonight, Bowdoin visit top-ranked Tufts at 6pm in the NESCAC regular-season finale. Bowdoin have won eight straight and already clinched a home quarterfinal on Saturday, after rallying past Connecticut College 2-1 on Saturday. Tufts are the standard in Division III right now, and a road win there would be the statement result of Bowdoin’s season before the tournament even starts. A loss changes nothing about Saturday’s home game, but the Polar Bears will want the momentum.
The seeding picture is settling everywhere. Rochester clinched a Liberty League tournament berth with a 5-0 shutout of St. Lawrence, with junior Erin Foley scoring a hat trick and adding an assist for seven points, one of the best single-game tallies in program history. Hartwick locked up the No. 2 seed in the Empire 8 with a 3-1 win over St. John Fisher, with senior Katelyn Klotz scoring twice, and the Hawks host a semifinal on Wednesday 4 November. Cornell, meanwhile, snapped a five-game losing streak with a 6-1 win at New Hampshire on Sunday, with freshman Megan Devletian scoring her first two collegiate goals, and the Big Red still have everything to play for at Penn on Saturday, where a win sends them to the Ivy League Tournament.
For our money, tonight belongs to the United East underdogs. Harrisburg and St. Mary’s are waiting, and waiting teams don’t always start sharp on Saturday. Win tonight, and Wilson or Cedar Crest walk into a semifinal with nothing to lose.
Related links:
https://sportscursor.com/tufts-bowdoin-tuesday-nescac-perfect-record-27-october-2026/
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https://sportscursor.com/dartmouth-2-1-bryant-bowman-overtime-sewell-first-goal-27-october-2026/
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