Four wins. That's all that separates the top-seeded Miami University men's ice hockey team (27-7-7 overall) from a long desired national championship.

Through many trials and tribulations over the past five years, Head Coach Enrico Blasi has held out faith that his team is a national championship team, but the Red and White has yet to claim the hardware to prove it, even after skating to the brink of clinching the title just one season ago.

This weekend, Miami will make its fifth consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament with a regional semifinal matchup v. the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

The RedHawks have appeared in the final field of 16 eight times over the course of program history, though the consistency of the last five years has taken that accomplishment and evolved it from being a nice exclamation point at the end of the season to a serious goal.

In past seasons, the RedHawks have traveled hundreds of miles to play in their assigned regional brackets, but this year Miami needs to look no farther than Fort Wayne, Ind. — for the first time in history, the Red and White has secured the tournament's overall No. 1 seed.

"It's a recognition of what we've done all year," said Blasi, who was named collegehockeynews.com's Coach of the Year. "Obviously we've been pretty consistent and that's a tribute to our team and staying focused week after week."

Nearly a year has passed since the Brotherhood suffered a gut-wrenching overtime defeat at the hands of Boston University in last season's national championship contest. Returning to college hockey's grandest stage has been on everyone's minds all year and the team is playing with a purpose.

"We're all real excited about it," junior Andy Miele said. "(Getting back to the tournament) is something that's been in the back of our minds all year."

Perhaps even more prominent in the RedHawks' minds is the most devastating loss of all – the tragic death of senior student manager Brendan Burke earlier this season. The loss sent shockwaves through the team and the Brotherhood adorned their jerseys and helmets with clover-shaped emblems bearing the initials "BB" as a tribute to ‘Burkie.'

"We have a lot of things that serve as reminders of him, but probably the biggest reminder is the memories that we have," junior captain Tommy Wingels said. "He meant something different to each guy on the team and each guy will have that one memory that makes you feel good about him."

Fate works in interesting ways, and the RedHawks' trip to Fort Wayne, Ind. will take them directly past the place where Brendan's fatal auto accident occurred on Feb. 5.

"We're going to stop the bus and take a couple of minutes as a team and just think about Burkie a little bit, and then we'll make our way to Fort Wayne," Blasi said. "We know he's with us. We want to make sure he's along for the ride and that he's got the best seat watching his favorite team."

Once in Fort Wayne them team will face stiff competition amongst a field comprised of two CCHA teams and two College Hockey America (CHA) teams. Miami will face off against UAH in the afternoon semifinal contest on Saturday, while Michigan and Bemidji State University (BSU) will clash in the late game that night. The regional final is set to take place on Sunday.

Per the usual, the Red and White will be taking this weekend one game at a time.

"Our thought is only Alabama right now," Blasi said. "There is no Sunday game scheduled for Miami — there's only a Saturday game, so our focus is on Alabama. They're a very good team, they're a champion, they won their playoff, they've got a great goaltender, they're very good down the middle and they've got a big D-corp."

Miami and UAH have arrived at this crossroads by different paths — the RedHawks proved their worthiness from the get-go, topping the national polls in 17 of 23 weeks in the 2009-10 campaign, while the Chargers pulled off a surprise win in the CHA championship to clinch the conference's final auto bid. This marks just the second time in program history UAH has broken into the final field of 16, with the last appearance occurring in 2007.

This Saturday will mark the seventh time Miami and UAH have faced each other, the first since 2003-04, and the first in the postseason. The Brotherhood holds a 5-1-0 ledger in the all time series over the Chargers. The Royal Blue and White, though not quite as impressive on paper as some of the nation's other elite teams, is a force to be reckoned with and a team the Red and White is not taking lightly.

"They're a good team," Wingels said. "They're playing very well right now. Obviously, if you win your conference tournament, you're probably playing your best hockey. We're going to have to play our best to beat them and we know they're going to come out hard."

UAH sophomore Cody Campbell and junior Andrew Copburn lead the team's scoring, currently holding identical marks of seven goals and 13 assists for 20 points. By this ruler, the Chargers appear outmatched when compared to Miami's eight 20-plus point holders, three of whom — senior Jarod Palmer along with Wingels and Miele — have exceeded the 40-plus mark. The Royal Blue and White's offensive numbers fall near the bottom of the pack, while the RedHawks' 3.44 goals per game average ranks eighth overall.

"Our team's the best when we can roll all four lines and it shows in our scoring," Wingels said. "Teams can't match lines at this point in the season when you have three, four lines going, and we have a lot of skilled guys. Guys who work hard are spread amongst all four lines, and it makes us very difficult to play against."

The takeaway point from all of this is that the Chargers know how to play, and succeed, in close games. Eight of UAH's 12 victories have been won by one-goal margins, with the Royal Blue and White's most recent triumphs in the CHA Tournament serving as key examples of this. The Chargers bested favored regular season runaway BSU 1-0 in the semifinals before moving on and securing a 3-2 overtime win against Niagra to claim the title. This experience will prove invaluable to UAH in the national tournament, as close games are the norm amongst the nation's top 16 teams. Games at this elite level are battles and score sheets are normally devoid of blowout victories.