{"id":49525,"date":"2013-02-28T05:00:06","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=49525"},"modified":"2013-02-27T20:57:16","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T02:57:16","slug":"lowell-points-to-character-in-explaining-surge-to-share-of-first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2013\/02\/28\/lowell-points-to-character-in-explaining-surge-to-share-of-first-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Lowell points to character in explaining surge to share of first place"},"content":{"rendered":"
On Dec. 1, the Massachusetts-Lowell River Hawks lost to New Hampshire 5-2 for the second straight night.<\/p>\n
At that point, Lowell had gotten off to a somewhat miserable 4-7-1 start. Sure, there was a win at Colorado College and an 8-2 drubbing of rival Massachusetts in those four wins.<\/p>\n
But this was a UMass-Lowell team coming off its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1996 and returning the core nucleus of what made last year’s team a success.<\/p>\n
At that point in the season, it would’ve been easy for the River Hawks to say, “Boy, we overachieved last year.”<\/p>\n
Truthfully, that may have been the case for the 2011-12 River Hawks team. Under first-year coach Norm Bazin, Lowell seemed to have a renewed focus with a talented group of players. A year after the club had won just five games, last year’s Lowell team put 24 wins on the board and was a game away from the school’s first Frozen Four.<\/p>\n
The scenario, well documented to this point, was an unlikely one. But with the success came expectations.<\/p>\n
When you start with a 4-7-1 record in your first 12 games once those expectations are placed on you, however, you can’t fault anyone for saying maybe last year’s team was a bit of a fraud.<\/p>\n
Something happened after that pair of 5-2 losses to UNH. Maybe the team was sick of being pushed around. Maybe it saw that the next few games were winnable facing Northeastern, Harvard, Bentley, Clarkson (for two) and Vermont (for two).<\/p>\n
Whatever the explanation, the River Hawks responded. They won all of the aforementioned games, plus single tilts against Providence and Boston University and suddenly had reason to feel good about themselves.<\/p>\n