Utah M2 ranked #2 in final West Regional Rankings

February 11, 2025
Salt Lake City, Utah

With the Wasatch Cup and Mountain West Collegiate Hockey League Conference Championships in the books, the final computerized rankings of the 2024-25 season is here!

Utah’s stellar performance in the MWCHL Conference Championship guaranteed they would earn the #2 seed in the West with wins over #1 Montana State, #4 Weber State University, and #11 University of Montana.

The Utes’ offensive prowess combined with rock solid defense has proved invaluable all season.  The goals for and goals against ratio now stands at 131 to 70 for the season with a plus 61 goal differential. 

The top five points leaders for the Utes include: Rookie Connor Beers with 27 points (14G, 13A), followed by Captain Ezekial Endy with 26 points (12G, 13A), Garrett Jackson with 19 points, (6G, 13A), Keegan Torrey with 18 points (14G, 4A), and Donovan O’Shea with 18 points (8G, 10A).

Goaltending has also been pivotal to their success with all three goalies exhibiting game winning numbers; #31 Ryan Winkelmann with 1.81 GAA with 6 games played, #30 Jack Nowicki with 2.22 GAA with 13 games played, and #33 Marcello De Antunano with a 2.06 GAA with 15 games played.

The Mountain West Collegiate Hockey League, of which Utah M2 is a member, had a strong performance with seven (of 10) of its member teams ranked in the Top Twenty. The Big Mountain had two (of 6) of its member teams ranked, and the West Coast Hockey Conference has two (of 9) of its member teams ranked.

The ACHA will use the two computer rankings generated by USHSHO.com, Ranking A (Wins with Maximum Goal Differential of 7) and Ranking B (Wins with Maximum Goal Differential of 1), and come up with an average of the two rankings. The ACHA will then use the list generated from the average for its weekly ranking. Ties will be broken using the higher ranked team from Ranking B until the Top 20 teams are listed. All games that go to overtime will be scored as ties in the computer ranking.

Now in its 34th season of action, there have been a total of 18 schools that have won the ACHA Men’s Division 2 National Championship: Life University (5), Florida Gulf Coast (4), Michigan State (4), Davenport (3), Mary (3), NYU (2), Oakland (2), Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Grand Valley State, Colorado, Miami (OH), Western Michigan, Colorado State, Ferris State, Buffalo State, and Toledo.

A total of 182 teams will compete in Men’s Division 2 this season.

The computer ranking will be used to determine the 14 teams that qualify for each of the 2025 ACHA Men’s Division 2 Regional Tournaments. The top two seeds from each region following the final Men’s Division II regular season rankings will bypass the Regional and receive an automatic berth in the 2025 ACHA National Championships, which will be played from March 13-25, 2025 at the Centene Community Ice Center in Maryland Heights, Missouri.

Each Regional will consist of 12 teams. Teams seeded #3 through #10 will receive an invitation to their respective Regional. Teams seeded #11 through #14 will be filled by conference auto bids.

If any of the conference auto bids are not filled (i.e., team has already qualified, unable to accept bid, less than four eligible conferences, etc.), the position(s) in the Regional will be filled by the next highest ranked team(s) within that Region as an At‐Large bid.

Men’s Division 2 Conferences include:
Atlantic Coast Collegiate Hockey League (ACCHL)
Big Mountain Hockey Conference (BMCH)
Colonial States College Hockey Conference (CSCHC)
Mid-American Collegiate Hockey Association (MACHA)
Mountain West Collegiate Hockey League (MWCHL)
Northeast Collegiate Hockey Association (NECHA)
Northern Collegiate Hockey League (NCHL)
Pacific 8 Intercollegiate Hockey Conference (PAC-8)
Super East Collegiate Hockey League (SECHL)
Texas Collegiate Hockey Conference (TCHC)
Tri-State Collegiate Hockey League (TSCHL)
Western Collegiate Club Hockey Association (WCCHA)
West Coast Hockey Conference (WCHC)

Full Men’s Division 2 rankings can be found here.

2024-2025 ACHA MEN’S DIVISION 2 Western Ranking #9 (FINAL)