Merry Christmas Eve everyone, as we sit tight waiting for the second half of D-III Women’s hockey out west to start up once again, we now look back on the first half of the season so we know who to look out for in the second half and beyond. Many standout players and teams on both sides of the map, but here’s the west recap.
First Half Winners
Let’s start off with one that some may have overlooked at the start of the year due to their preseason rank of #12, that’s Adrian, who sits at #4 with a 10-1-0 record. In my preseason article I made it clear I believed they would be great and making a run at the title this year and they’ve shown us just that. They’ve outscored opponents 44-9 and goaltender Sophie Goldberg has 4 shutouts so far. The team has been tested regularly, they swept (current) #15 Oswego on the road handily, they then swept Augsburg after the Auggies gave Gustavus a run and then shocked UW-River Falls in the opening weekend of play. They recently took down #5 Norwich and their only loss came to #4 Plattsburgh by the score of 1-0 after giving up a goal at the 57 minute mark of the game.
Adrian is my biggest first-half winner due to their low ranking of #12 to start the season and watching them seemingly dominate most of their opponents thus far.
My second winner is #2 UW-River Falls (9-2-0), who in my opinion, are currently the best team in the country and should be #1. They’ve shown us outside of opening weekend where they dropped a game to Augsburg, that they can beat anyone and do it when it matters. They bring an impressive résumé with them as in the first half they faced many ranked tests, and won all except one. They defeated (all rankings at the time of win) #8 UW-Eau Claire 3-2, #3 Plattsburgh 3-2, #1 Middlebury 3-2 OT, & #1 Gustavus 3-0… Their only loss coming to #1 Gustavus 2-0.
No other team has a better résumé so far than UW-River Falls and they should be rewarded for that. Their preseason ranking was very high at #5, but have moved themselves into their current #2 spot.
The final winner I’ll mention is of course #1 Gustavus. The Gusties were undefeated until facing #2 UW-River Falls and split with them to end the half with a record of 11-1-0. They’ve been dominant in nearly all their games, outscoring opponents 48-7. Goaltender Katie McCoy has been a top-2 netminder holding a record of 10-1, 5 shutouts, and a .964 save percentage. Beginning the year at #2 behind Middlebury, coming off a runner-up finish in the NCAA tournament to the defending champions Middlebury, hopes and expectations were high for Gustavus entering the year, they’ve lived up to those expectations and earned themselves the #1 ranking.
Gustavus has passed all their tests so far except for one, splitting with #2 UWRF, I expect them to possibly win-out or drop one game to UW-River Falls as they face one more time, but due to their overall schedule strength and dominance they’ve shown so far, it’s hard for me to see them losing again outside of UWRF.
Standout Players *all stats via USCHO*
Many players have stood out so far this season, in terms of forwards, some players have loaded up points on the stat-sheet. Forwards who’ve stood out so far:
Darci Matson, a sophomore of Aurora University leads the country in points and is eight points clear of the next most for a player out west, in 11 games, averaging nearly 3 points per game, she has 32 points (17 goals & 15 assists), this includes 5 GWG (game-winning-goals) and 2 short-handed goals. Her best game was vs Finlandia on 11/11/22, she totaled 4 goals and 3 assists in the 10-0 victory.
Sophie Rausch, a senior at UW-Eau Claire, has totaled 24 points in 12 games (17 goals, 7 assists) including 3 GWG, 4 powerplay goals, and 1 short-handed goal. Her most notable game was on 12/6/22 vs Hamline where she had a hat trick in the 4-1 win.
In terms of defense and those who play it, it’s an objective position to rate in terms of stats. Some of the best defenseman have very few goals or assists, you would need to see them all in person which is near impossible, but some defenseman that rack up points may not be the ideal type of player a team may want either depending on their style of play. With that being said, here’s the one defenseman whose stood out so far on the stat-sheet:
Hallie Sheridan, a senior at UW-Eau Claire, leads the west with 16 points in 12 games (5 goals, 11 assists).
These players have 11 points, which is tied for second amongst the west:
Grace Lankas, sophomore – St. Olaf (2 goals, 9 assists)
Kathryn Truban, junior – Adrian (3 goals, 8 assists)
Ava Jaschke, senior – St. Norbert (2 goals, 9 assists)
MaKenna Aure, freshman – UW-River Falls (6 goals, 5 assists)
Finally, we have the last line of defense, the goaltenders. Here are the goaltenders who’ve stood out the most, hint, there’s a lot.
Katie McCoy, a senior at Gustavus has the best record at 10-1-0, .964 save-percentage, and 5 shutouts.
Sami Miller, a graduate-senior at UW-River Falls, has an 8-1-0 record including 2 shutouts and a .947 save-percentage. She also has a 4-1-0 record against top-10/top-5 opponents, she’s built an impressive résumé thus far due to the overall strength of opponents she’s faced.
Stephanie Martin, a graduate-senior at UW-Eau Claire has the second most wins with a 9-1-0 record, 3 shutouts, and a save-percentage of .933.
Brynn Waisman, a sophomore at St. Norbert, holds a .969 save-percentage with a 5-1-2 record.
Sophie Goldberg, a senior at Adrian, has an 8-1-0 record including 4 shutouts, and a .959 save-percentage.
Notable mention: Samantha Steciak, a junior at Aurora, has only 4 games played but a 4-0-0 record, with a nation’s-best .984 save-percentage.
We look ahead now to the second half of the season, the first half went very fast, it seems as though we just began our 2022-2023 season last week (unless you’re a player who’s sore and recovering at the moment next to the fire). Great hockey so far and looking forward to seeing it continue in the coming weeks and months!
