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OXFORD — If you follow a road map, the trip from Celina to Oxford is easy: Just 71 miles south on U.S. Route 127 and then seven miles west on Ohio Route 73.

But Cody Reichard's journey was far more difficult and a lot, lot longer.

From his Mercer County hometown, he went to Lansing, Mich., then Indianapolis and finally Fairbanks, Alaska. Along the way, there were six-, 10- and 16-hour bus rides to places like Kearney, Neb., Sioux Falls, S.D., Topeka, Kan., and Soldotna, Alaska.

During the summers, there were detours to Boston, and long before that, nightly trips as a teenager to Fort, Wayne, Ind., and sometimes Dayton and Centerville.

And yet the more Reichard crisscrossed the countryside, the more he found he just couldn't seem to find his way to Miami University in Oxford.

A junior hockey league goalie of note, he had graduated from high school and was with the Indiana Ice of the United States Hockey League when Miami University coach Enrico Blasi twice travelled to Indianapolis to watch him play. Both games Reichard never got off the bench.

Two years ago, after being released by the Ice, the dejected Reichard called Blasi and asked if there might be room for him on the RedHawks team if he were willing to be a walk-on and pay his way to school.

Blasi offered his regrets, said the roster was full and suggested the sojourn to another junior league in Alaska.

Finally, though, during that stint with the Fairbanks Ice Dogs last year, Reichard got the call he'd been awaiting for three years.

"We'd been on the road about two weeks and I had been playing pretty well," he remembered. "We were in a hotel in Wichita Falls, Texas — I remember the day, Jan. 21, 2008 — and Coach Blasi said he had a scholarship for me, but I had to let him know that day if I wanted it. I had maybe two or three hours to decide and I'd never even seen the campus."

To make matters more intriguing, three other schools — including Ohio State — suddenly were interested in him.

Although he made a quick call back to Celina to talk to his parents — Barb and Martin Reichard — he already knew the direction he'd go.

For the first time in his life, his way was paved to Miami.

And since then something beyond belief has happened.

He's now led the RedHawks on a road they have never before travelled.

With the 22-year-old freshman in goal, Miami upset both No. 1 seed Denver and No. 2 seed Minnesota-Duluth in the NCAA tournament West Regional last weekend to earn a berth in the Frozen Four.

When the RedHawks meet Bemidji State (Minn.) in an NCAA semifinal at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., on April 9, it will be the first time a Miami team — in any sport — has played in an NCAA final four tournament.

"When he went off and did something so different, a lot of people back here in Celina didn't understand at the time," Barb said. "But this week everybody understands."

The journey begins

Ice hockey and Celina are not a bread-and-butter fit. The nearest sheets of ice — unless you count a frozen Grand Lake St. Marys in the winter — are likely Troy, Dayton and Fort Wayne.

When Reichard was in third grade, his family moved to Celina from Michigan. Back then, Barb said, Celina had a "huge" roller-hockey program and the Reichards' neighbor kid — Dustin Braun — was into it. Soon Cody and his older brother Chad were, too.

"I started playing at the local roller rink and in our driveway and then my mom would take my brother and I to Dayton to play on travelling teams," Reichard said.

While Chad stuck with the sport, Cody branched off to ice hockey in seventh grade and life forever changed for the Reichards.

He started playing on teams in Fort Wayne and initially that meant at least three trips a week for practices and games. By the time he was in high school — except freshman year when he put hockey on hold to letter in cross country and wrestling at Celina High School — Reichard and his mom were travelling nightly in their Chevy Suburban to Indiana.

"In the early days I can remember him running out of school with his backpack on, jumping in the truck and we were on our way," Barb said. "We did meals in the truck, his homework, too.

"Sometimes when the weather was bad, we might not get back until 1 a.m. And still he'd be up each morning at 6 for school.

"I remember one time when he was a little older, we were in a heck of a snowstorm. He was driving and I had my head out the window looking for the lines along the side of the road."

By senior year, Reichard felt he'd have better hockey opportunities in Michigan, so he left Celina, moved in with one of his mom's best friends in Holt, Mich., outside Lansing and graduated in one semester from Holt High School while playing travelling league hockey.

From there he was drafted by Indiana into the USHL and then went on to the North American Hockey League in Alaska, though many of those games were played in the lower 48 states.

"Over the years I guess you could say mom became a hockey-holic," Barb laughed. "When he was playing in Alaska, his dad and I would go to bed about 6 in the evening, then wake up at 11:30 that night and listen to his games on the computer. And we wouldn't go back to bed 'til sometimes after three in the morning — until after he called and we talked about the game."

And last year there was a lot to talk about.

Over 50 games, Reichard had a 2.05 goals-against average, the Ice Dogs finished 33-15-2 and he was voted the NAHL goaltender of the year and league MVP.

Money in the clutch

This was supposed to be a rebuilding season for Miami. Last year the RedHawks were ranked No. 1 in the nation for 13 straight weeks, would finish the season 33-8, had a Hobey Baker finalist (hockey's Heisman equivalent) in Ryan Jones, another All-American in Alec Martinez and one of the nation's best goaltenders in Jeff Zatkoff.

But for the second straight season, they were beaten by Boston College in the NCAA tournament's regional final, this time 4-3 in overtime.

Zatkoff jumped to the pros and senior goalie Charlie Effinger graduated, so that left the net duties to Reichard and fellow freshman Connor Knapp.

The two shared the job during the season and while Reichard would notch a couple of big victories — two at home against Michigan, and two against No. 2 Notre Dame at the Joyce Center — he struggled in another game against the Wolverines in early January at Miami's Steve Cady Arena, was replaced by Knapp and spent almost a month waiting to get back onto the ice.

"He lost his confidence a little bit there, so we gave him some time off and he worked hard and came back strong," Blasi said.

And he was never stronger than last weekend.

Last Friday night he made 16 saves as Miami dumped Denver in the regional semifinal at the University of Minnesota. And on Saturday, he was superb in a 2-1 victory over Minnesota-Duluth. In the second period alone, Duluth had 10 power-play shots and he made every stop, finishing with 25 saves for the game.

When the game, which was televised on ESPNU, ended and Miami had made the Frozen Four, the celebration back in Oxford erupted. People poured from the uptown bars and partied in the streets. People in cars blew their horns and in Minnesota, Reichard's cell phone quickly filled with 35 text messages.

A lot of them were from folks back home in Celina. Like Barb said, they now understood his journey.

He hadn't just found his way to Miami, he'd found a way to take his team on a trip to athletic history.