After preparing for it all season, the Grand Valley State University Division II hockey club team is heading to Nationals, where the Lakers are looking to achieve their second-consecutive National Championship.

“We’re going in with a lot of confidence,” said junior defender Craig Marrett. “We’re also going in with a huge target on our back as returning champions. We can’t take anyone lightly. Everyone is there for the same reason we are.”

Beginning on Friday, Florida Gulf Coast University will host the 16 top-ranked Division II teams from across the nation for five days of win-or-go-home hockey. The teams will be divided into four pools, with four teams in each pool facing off with hopes of advancing to the semi-finals and eventually the finals.

“Everyone’s always excited for this point, even right when the season starts,” said senior forward Brad Keough. “We should have a good chance if we play smart and play our game. Anyone can beat anyone else on any given night, but we feel like we have a good enough team to beat anyone there.”

The Lakers, who were placed in Pool D, will play the Northern Arizona University on Friday, the Siena College on Saturday and Penn State University on Sunday. Should the Lakers advance, they will take on the victor from Pool B in the semi-finals.

“We’ve got one of the more difficult pools,” said GVSU coach Mike Forbes. “Ours has the best balance. We’ve got our hands full in pool-play, and if we’re fortunate enough to advance out of that, then who knows from there? Every team that is there has the ability to win the Championship, that’s the catch-22 of Nationals. There are several very good hockey teams. It’s important that we clean our game up so that we’re ready to go when the puck drops.”

The Lakers will depart for Fort Myers, Fla., on Wednesday, and despite the temptation to look ahead to the finals, the team is committed to taking every day one game at a time.

“We can’t get overconfident,” Marrett said. “It’s pretty easy to get ahead of yourself at Nationals. We have to take everything a day at a time. As soon as you start looking ahead, you run into problems.”

With so many excellent teams battling for the National Championship title, it would be easy to get intimidated. However, the Lakers are confident that, if they play to the best of their ability and avoid any of their past mistakes, they will be able to take a shot at the title once again.

“It’s just going to be a matter of who is strongest and who can withstand playing five games in five days and keep their level of play high,” Forbes said. “I think our team can do that. Our goal was to make it to Nationals to give ourselves a chance to repeat our success from last year and we’ve put ourselves in a good position to do that. I think it will be a great accomplishment to have back to back National Championships, but it’s a tough road to accomplish that goal. I won’t be disappointed if we don’t win, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up winning it.”

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