March 13, 2008

DETROIT - When the College Hockey America officials released the list of 2008 individual award winnings Thursday Bemidji State University was well represented. Beaver freshman Matt Read (Ilderton, Ontario) was named CHA Rookie of the Year, while seventh-year head coach Tom Serratore garnered Coach of the Year honors in a poll of CHA coaches.

Read becomes the third BSU student-athlete to earn the league's top award for a rookie following Riley Riddell (2002) and Luke Erickson (2004), while Serratore hauls in his third CHA Coach of the Year award.

Read capped the 2007-08 regular-season as BSU’s leading scorer with 8-17=25, while he recorded a game winning goal, registered one of BSU three short-handed goals on the season and matched 2008 Second Team All-CHA pick Travis Winter to lead the team with a +10 plus/minus rating. One of five BSU skaters to log time in each of BSU’s 34 contests this season, he also paced the team with 17 assists posting a pair of multi-assists games and led the team with six multi-point outings. With at least one game remaining in his freshman campaign, his 25 points seat him in a tie with teammate Tyler Scofield's rookie season point total for fifth place on BSU's Division I-era scoring list.

His team-high 7-14=21 points in CHA play was not only tops among newcomers league-wide, it also ranked as the league’s fifth-leading scoring total.

A unanimous selection to the 2008 CHA All-Rookie squad earlier this week, Read was a three-time CHA Rookie of the Week honoree, while earning the league’s offensive player of the week laurel Jan. 14 after notching a goal and four assists in a series sweep over Alabama-Huntsville.

Serratore was named CHA Coach of the Year for the third time in the last five seasons. In 2007-08, he directed the Beavers to their third CHA regular-season title with a mark of 13-4-3, while the team set BSU Division I-era records for penalty-kill efficiency (.870) and a new CHA 20-game schedule mark for goals allowed in a season (39). The team spent most of the campaign ranked among the top 10 in the country in scoring defense, power-play and penalty-kill efficiencies and combined special teams.

Under Serratore, BSU has posted six consecutive seasons with a record of .500 or better, while it has captured five straight top two finishes in CHA play. Since the beginning of the 2003-04 season, no NCAA Division I program has fared better within their own league than BSU. During that time frame, the Beavers are 66-24-10--a mark good for a .710 winning percentage.

Under the tutelage of Serratore, the Beavers have also excelled off the ice. The team set a CHA record having 18 student-athletes earning Academic All-CHA honors this winter. Since Serratore took the reigns of the program prior to he 2001-02 season, his teams have piled up 101 Academic All-CHA awards--far and away the most in CHA.

With a career coaching record of 119-101-28 at his Alma mater, Serratore ranks second on BSU games coached list (248), while his 119 victories rank second, behind only legendary head coach R.H. "Bob" Peters.

As the CHA Coach of the Year, Serratore will automatically be a finalist for the Spencer Penrose Award, given to the National Coach of the Year as selected by USA Hockey. When that list is announced, Serratore will have been a finalist for the award four times in his seven seasons as head coach at Bemidji State. He was a finalist in 2001 and after winning CHA Coach of the Year laurels in 2004 and 2005.

Bemidji State finished its 2007-08 regular season with a record of 16-15-3 and captured its third College Hockey America regular-season title with a mark of 13-4-3 in the league. The Beavers open play as the No. 1 seed at the 2008 CHA Tournament on Saturday, March 15 when they face off with the winner of the tournament's quarterfinal game between Wayne State and Ala.-Huntsville. BSU's semifinal match up is set for 1 p.m. Central time at Dwyer Arena in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

2007-08 College Hockey America Individual Awards

Player of the Year
Ryan Cruthers, Robert Morris, Sr., F, Farmingdale, N.Y.

Student-Athlete of the Year
Joel Gasper, Robert Morris, Sr., F, Crookston, Minn.

Rookie of the Year
Matt Read, Bemidji State, Fr., F, Ilderton, Ontario

Coach of the Year
Tom Serratore, Bemidji State

-bsu-