As of Nov. 28, the Oswego State Lakers men’s ice hockey team is ranked No. 1 in the nation by both the D3hockey and USCHO polls.

After impressive wins over SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Plattsburgh, the Lakers took the holiday weekend off and saw last week’s No. 1 St. Norbert fall to Manhattanville College and No. 2/4 Wisconsin Stevens-Point fall to No. 4/3 Adrian College.

All the chaos at the top of the polls led the Lakers to the top spot, and the team hopes to continue their undefeated ways through this weekend when they split a home-and-home series with Morrisville State.

“It means that you’re doing something right,” head coach Ed Gosek said. “Obviously you haven’t lost a game so people are giving you respect.”

The rankings were not very significant to the veteran coach, however he said they can be used as a powerful recruiting tool. Their current priority is to keep winning and the rankings will follow.

“We don’t want to let a ranking affect the way that we play, the way that we work, the way that we approach things,” Gosek said.

It took the Lakers five weeks to reach the top spot and they have done so climbing after being unranked in both preseason polls. This was the frist time in men’s Div. III history that a team started the season unranked and moved to the No. 1 spot.

“It doesn’t mean we have to be harder on them, it doesn’t mean we have to ease up on them, or they don’t push themselves the way that they have,” Gosek said. “It’s just having the same hunger with something to prove that we started the year off, where we weren’t ranked by anybody and we’re coming off a subpar season.”

It’s been a long road back to the top for an Oswego State team who suffered their worst season last year since the 1996-1997 campaign.

“We don’t talk about it,” Gosek said. “Whether we’re ranked, not ranked, ranked number one. The only time we really talk about it is the very end of the year.”

The two biggest reasons the Lakers have risen to the position they currently find themselves in is their two massive wins over SUNY Geneseo at home and SUNY Plattsburgh on the road.

Clearing those mental hurdles has gotten Oswego State back into a winning mindset and is allowing the veterans to get back to where they used to be and the younger players can follow suit.

The players took a similar approach to Gosek about the new rankings, particularly senior captain Chris Raguseo.

“Our goal wasn’t to be first now, our goal is to be first in March,” Ragueso said. “Obviously, it’s nice to be recognized like that, but at the same time we got to look at what got us here, and that’s the way we got to keep playing, obviously, if we want to hold that spot and ultimately be there in March.”

Raguseo’s biggest focus is this weekend’s games against Morrisville State. The 1-6-2 Mustangs, despite their rough season so far, present a challenge to the Lakers just like any other team would.

“Our biggest thing, for us, has been about faceless opponents,” Raguseo said “I think as long as we handle our business, we know we have the talent and the effort and the attitude in that dressing room where if we play our game, we’re concentrating on achieving our own goals, and the bigger success that comes with that, that’s secondary.”

Gosek echoed that sentiment from Raguseo, stressing that his team can not go into this weekend taking the Mustangs lightly.

“They tied [University of Massachusetts Boston], who just beat Utica [College], who hadn’t lost, they’ve played a lot of teams tough, they’ve shown they have the ability to score goals,” Gosek said.

Since the team is coming off a week of rest, two games against a lesser opponent can quickly become detrimental if the Lakers are not able to get their legs under them and lose the momentum they have had so far early in the season.

“I would normally say that the break came at a good time, but when you’re playing well and guys are having fun, it wasn’t like it was work,” Gosek said. “Guys are coming to the rink excited. We can’t control the break and we had the week off and guys were good [at practice].”

Consistency is key for the Lakers at this point in the season along with building on what brought them to being ranked as the top Div. III team in the country. This weekend presents a new challenge for the team as they now have a target on their back and it will show their true colors on how they respond.

The home-and-home begins at Morrisville on Friday night at 7 p.m. and comes back to the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena Saturday night at 7 p.m.