UCHC Announces 2020 Men’s Annual Awards, All-Conference Teams
Rochester, NY – The United Collegiate Hockey Conference is pleased to announce its 2019-2020 Men’s All-Conference teams and major award winners. The award winners were selected through a thorough survey of the league’s ten head coaches.
For a second straight season, the conference will have men’s Co-Players of the Year. Wilkes University’s Donald Flynn and Utica College’s Conor Landrigan will share the top spot this season.
Wilkes University’s Donald Flynn ties for top honors after one of the strongest seasons of any UCHC player to date in the league’s short history. He has 27 goals and 24 assists for 51 points. He is just the second UCHC skater to hit 50 points in a single campaign. Flynn is the nation’s leading goal scorer with 27, and is second in the nation in points per game at 2.04. His fourteen goals in conference play lead the UCHC. Wilkes has advanced to their first UCHC final in just their second year as a program.
Utica’s Conor Landrigan earns the highest honor of his career to date after a brilliantly productive season. He had 12 goals and 26 assists for 38 points while appearing in just 20 games, and is averaging 1.90 points per game across all of his games played this season. He led the conference in points per game during UCHC play this season at 2.00 points per conference game. While skating in fourteen of his team’s eighteen conference games, Landrigan had eight goals and twenty assists.
Nazareth’s Michael Tilford earns his first conference goaltender of the year nod as a Senior after backstopping the Golden Flyers into a tie for the school single season wins record, and leading his team into the UCHC semifinals. He had a record of 8-7-2 for the second winningest single season by a Naz goaltender. In UCHC play, he was 6-4-1 and led the UCHC in conference save percentage at 93.8 percent.
Utica’s Brandon Osmundson was named the conference’s Rookie of the Year for the 2019-20 season. He is Utica’s second winner of this award in the last three seasons. Osmundson has had an incredible rookie season for the Pioneers, as he currently sits as the nation’s leading rookie scorer on a per game basis at 1.48 points per game. That figure also sits eleventh nationally among all skaters. He has 40 points this season on twelve goals and 28 assists.
Utica’s Daniel Fritz was selected as the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year for the 2019-20 season. He becomes the second Pioneer to win UCHC Defensive Player of the Year alongside 2018 All-American Dalton Carter. Fritz leads the nation’s defensemen in points per game at an average of 1.41 per contest. He has 11 goals and 27 assists for 38 points.
Utica head coach Gary Heenan was named the Conference’s Coach of the Year by his peers. Heenan has led the Pioneers to the best regular season in their 19 year history. He has piloted the team to a current record of 23-2-2, and a 15-2-1 record in conference play that won the UCHC regular season title for a third straight year. The team has set a school record for wins heading into this weekend’s UCHC Championship series. Utica is in the conference finals for a fifth consecutive season.
The full list of UCHC award winners is listed below.
UCHC Men’s Award Winners 2020
Co-Player of the Year: Donald Flynn, Wilkes University
Co-Player of the Year: Conor Landrigan, Utica College
Rookie of the Year: Brandon Osmundson, Utica College
Defensive Player of the Year: Daniel Fritz, Utica College
Goaltender of the Year: Michael Tilford, Nazareth College
Coach of the Year: Gary Heenan, Utica College
First Team All-UCHC
Forward: Connor Powell, Elmira College
Forward: Donald Flynn, Wilkes University
Forward: Conor Landrigan, Utica College
Defense: Daniel Fritz, Utica College
Defense: Michael Gurska, Wilkes University
Goaltender: Michael Tilford, Nazareth College
Second Team All-UCHC
Forward: Brandon Osmundson, Utica College
Forward: Nick Ford, Elmira College
Forward: Nick Fea, Wilkes University
Defense: Christian Lloyd, Elmira College
Defense: Aaron Murray, Stevenson University
Goaltender: Gianluca Baggetta, Utica College
UCHC All-Rookie Team
Forward: Brandon Osmundson, Utica College
Forward: Austin Master, Stevenson University
Forward: Tommy Cahill, King’s College
Defense: Jacob Cuffley, Utica College
Defense: Ziki Mroz, Lebanon Valley College
Goaltender: Ryan Kenny, Stevenson University
