They've already beaten the top two teams in the national rankings this season.

So bring on No. 21.

After a regular season that saw it record its first wins ever over perennial powerhouses Minot State University and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon University D1 Men's Hockey team secured a berth in the American Collegiate Hockey League Division 1 National Championships for the second straight postseason. After pulling off a mild first-round upset last year as the No. 17 seed, the Lopes have moved up to the 12^th seed, which will pit them against 21^st-seeded University of Delaware, who will also be making back-to-back appearances in the 24-team field at the national tourney.

The 20-game season that the 2023-24 Lopes enjoyed set a new high-water mark for wins in a season for the program. While that team is now indelibly etched in GCU Club Sports lore, the 2024-25 squad (15-13 overall) brings a swagger and a level of experience to the national tournament that last year's team couldn't tout. Unlike 2023-24, when the team started very slow, then built steam during the spring, the 2024-25 roster has seen very few hiccups during its 28 games. The current Lopes have a ton of milestone moments to build off of, since half of the team's schedule was against teams ranked in the top 15 of the ACHA National Rankings, and they posted wins over Minot (a 1-0 overtime victory at home in December) and UNLV (a 4-3 OT win last Friday night at AZ Ice Arcadia), who are both among the top four seeds in the tournament. The balance of Lopes' Head Coach Danny Roy's spoke for itself, since the Lopes sported seven players scoring at least six goals (Owen Hanson and Braden Husby led with nine), and Colton Gerken showed how unselfish they were with a team-high 18 assists.

Meanwhile, GCU's first-round opponents are a 24-win team repeating the trip to Missouri, but hoping for the first-round win they didn't capture last March. The Blue Hens come off winning the Eastern States Collegiate Hockey League title after finishing atop the regular season standings. They also will give Lopes' starting goalie Dmytro Kubrytskyi (who finished with a 2.5 goals-against average) a major challenge, since Delaware sports three players – Ryan Rodriguez (29 goals, 29 assists), Justin Guelph (17 goals, 38 assists) and Tanner Mahoney (21 goals, 28 assists) – among the ACHA's top-6 point scorers.

"We'll stick to our process and continue to prepare the way we've done it all year," said Roy. "The seeding is about right, considering what we did all year long. The wins over MSU and UNLV kept us in the top 15. It shows we can compete with any of the top teams in this tournament, but we just need to focus on the team we're playing that night."

The Lopes and Blue Hens will actually open the tournament docket, playing Game 1 of the 23-game schedule at 8:15AM (Arizona time) on Thursday morning, March 13. A second straight first-round win gives the Lopes a day off before a second-round matchup against 5^th-seeded University of Jamestown Saturday, March 15. The national champion will be crowned on Tuesday, March 18.