DURHAM -- The New Hampshire football and hockey teams have matching No. 12 rankings in a couple of national polls this week and will try to live up to those marks.

The hockey team, one of three undefeated and untied teams among the squads who have opened their seasons, faces Hockey East rival Northeastern, ranked No. 15, tonight at the Whittemore Center at 7:30 and Saturday night in Boston.

The football team, which has has won its last four games to improve to 6-2 overall, takes on winless Rhode Island on Saturday on the road at noon. UNH has a ninth straight NCAA tournament appearance squarely in its sights.

Now is not the time to let up, said senior cornerback Dontra Peters, one of four Wildcat co-captains.

“We can’t get comfortable where we’re at,” Peters said. “We’ve got to keep playing like we’re 0-2. We’ve got to keep going. We’ve got to keep balling.”

He doesn’t think it likely Rhode Island, which is 0-7, can be a so-called “trap” game, when a team gets caught looking ahead and not paying proper attention to the assignment at hand.

“I think the way we practice and the way Coach (Sean) McDonnell runs everything, he doesn’t let that happen,” Peters said.

The seniors and veterans in the program reinforce the message.

Last Saturday afternoon, rolling out of Orono after the Wildcats knocked off Maine, was a case in point.

“We were on the bus watching the other scores around the league and the big one was the JMU-Richmond game,” Peters said, “After that was finalized and Richmond beat JMU, everyone was, ‘Where do we stand? Where do we stand?’ Us as seniors, we were excited about it, too, but we had to calm down the younger guys and let them know that even though it looks good, we’ve got to keep playing. It doesn’t really matter right now. We’ve just got to keep going so we can remain at this spot.”

That 35-29 Richmond win over James Madison helped tighten things at the top of the Colonial Athletic Association standings in the race for a league title and an automatic spot in the Football Championship Subdivision tournament.

UNH and Villanova are at 4-2 in the league and Old Dominion and James Madison are at 3-1.

ODU, which is on its way to the Football Bowl Subdivision for next season, is not eligible for the league championship.

UNH’s only CAA loss came at Old Dominion and the Wildcats do not face Villanova or James Madison this year.

After Rhode Island on Saturday, UNH plays William & Mary at home on Nov. 3, is off on Nov. 10 and plays Towson at home on Nov. 17.

William & Mary is 2-5 overall and 1-3 in the league going into this weekend’s home game with Maine. Towson, the pre-season pick to win the league, is 3-4 and 2-2 and plays at Villanova on Saturday.

McDonnell said the decision on whether to start either redshirt freshman Sean Goldrich or sophomore Andy Vailas of Bedford at quarterback will again come down to whichever player practice better this week and is healthiest.

“I don’t think either one is 100 percent, but they try to tell you they are,” McDonnell said. “But they’re good enough to play.”

Junior Jimmy Vailas, Andy’s older brother and a backup defensive lineman and special team’s regular, is done for the season with an injury that is still being evaluated, McDonnell said.

McDonnell said earlier in the week that junior safety Chris Beranger, the team’s second-leading tackler last season, will miss the rest of the season. Beranger had a concussion earlier in the year and had a second in the game at Old Dominion on Sept. 22 and has not played since.

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ONE OF several bright spots for the hockey team that has opened the season with three straight wins has been the play of junior forward Dalton Speelman, who has two goals and three assists in three games while skating on the top unit with freshman Grayson Downing and junior Nick Sorkin.

Speelman is back from a scary crash into the boards last November that resulted in a dislocated elbow and a shattered left wrist that threatened his career.

“He (Dr. Robert Waugh) came in to see me one morning in the hospital and asked, ‘Are you really serious about playing hockey?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely, this is what I’d like to do for a career,’” Speelman said. “He said, ‘Because I can either give you just functionally moving your wrist and daily life would be fine. Or I can really sit down and spend a lot of time working on you. And he did that.”

After what he called a “significant amount of surgery” and months of extensive rehabilitation, Speelman regained strength and worked his way back to holding a stick and eventually was cleared for contact.

“It was a long road,” Speelman said. “I spent a long time in rehab and day by day it got better. I had a lot of great people behind me.”

Speelman received a medical redshirt, which gives him the year of eligibility back.

Northeastern is 2-1-0 and beat Merrimack 4-2 before splitting with Boston College, winning 3-1 and losing 3-0. Tonight’s game will be televised by WBIN.

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CORY SINOTTE, a senior out of Manchester Central, leads the UNH men into the America East championships in Durham on Saturday.

The men’s race is at 10 a.m. over the 8-kilometer course in College Woods and the women begin at 11 a.m. over their 5K distance.

Both UNH teams are shooting for spots in the top three and hoping to contend for the title.

Sinotte went under 25 minutes for the first time at 24:52 in a pre-nationals meet a couple of weeks ago. “He’s had a wonderful year of training,” said UNH coach Jim Boulanger.

Senior Darcy James and junior Anne Twombly of Exeter and senior Erin Phillips of Belmont are among the runners looking to score points for the Wildcat women.

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Allen Lessels covers college sports for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. He may be reached at alessels@unionleader.com.