It’s almost time for those stacked Thanksgiving weekend tournaments where we get to see some top-tier non-conference play between ranked opponents. This past week featured some expected results as well as some surprises, but for the most part, everyone held their head, and the ranked teams handled their business out west.
MIAC
The MIAC is shaping up to be very competitive this year, unlike last year where it seemed as though Gustavus rolled through and left everyone behind, only dropping a single game to Augsburg during the regular-season conference play.
This year it seems as though there’s going to be some fight for the top spots in the conference, it also wouldn’t shock me to see Gustavus drop 2-3 games. Obviously, we need to see it to believe it, but look out for a road game or midweek game for the Gusties and we could potentially see a team steal one from them.
#1 Gustavus sweeps St. Scholastica
We’ll start our recap with the current #1 defending champs Gustavus, they shutout St. Scholastica 6-0 on Thurs. 11/9 & also on Sat. 11/11, winning 1-0. Goaltender Katie McCoy became the all-time wins leader for a Gustavus goaltender, winning her 64th game, which gives her an incredible overall career record of 64-9-3, passing Danielle Justice, ‘08-’12.
The point leaders for the Gusties in their St. Scholastica series were Kaitlyn Holland (2G 3A) & Hannah Gray (3G 2A). Saints goaltender Kenzie Cole made 45 saves in the 1-0 loss, but put-up impressive numbers, keeping her team in the game.
Saint Mary’s & Hamline split
Saint Mary’s has come out of the gates strong so far, they split with the Hamline Pipers over the weekend, winning 4-2 & losing 2-1 in OT. Hamline’s a team that’s looking to make a run at a MIAC playoff spot, a team that seems ready to make a leap as they won a big non-conference game earlier this year vs a ranked St. Norbert team.
In game one, in which the Cardinals took 4-2, we saw a lot of penalties, 6 for SMU and 5 for HU. Shots were 29-25 in favor of the Pipers and the game was relatively even. The game-winner was scored at the 5:01 mark of the 2nd period, a quick 20 seconds after Hamline tied it at 2 (4:41), and the one that sealed it was scored at the 15:49 mark of the 3rd period by Reese Heitzman.
Hamline would win game two to split the weekend series, Sydney Lemke tied the game at 1 with her goal at the 15:06 mark of the 2nd period, she then buried the winner a quick 1:38 into the overtime frame to win it for the Pipers. Through 5 games, Lemke is tied for the team-lead in points with 5 goals & 2 assists, Elizabeth Valley has 1 goal & 6 assists.
Other Notable Results:
Thursday:
Saint Benedict 5-2 Concordia (Minn.)
Friday:
Augsburg 7-1 St. Kates
Bethel 3-2 St. Olaf
Saturday:
Saint Benedict 5-4 OT Concordia (Minn.)
Bethel 2-1 St. Olaf
Augsburg 4-3 OT St. Kates
NCHA
The NCHA didn’t show us any surprises besides possibly the Marian sweep over U. of Dubuque. All but one game seemed lopsided over the weekend.
St. Norbert sweeps Trine
St. Norbert’s been an up and down team as of late, Trine has been on struggle street, but the Green Knights took care of business, winning 5-0 & 7-0. Trine’s start to the year hasn’t been pretty, they’ve been outscored in their 6 games (0-6 record) 27-5 and can’t seem to string many positives together.
Norbert led in shots in both games, 51-14 & 48-16, goaltender Brynn Waisman played 2 periods allowing 0 goals, Ashley Ommen played 4 periods, also allowing 0 goals.
Lake Forest sweeps Concordia (Wis.)
Lake Forest entered this series with a record of 0-4, not ideal, especially after coming off a promising year including a win over Adrian and ties with Aurora & St. Norbert. They seemed to possibly right-the-ship this past weekend, getting a pair of much needed wins.
The Foresters won game one via a 4-0 shutout from goaltender Chelsea Denniss, who made an impressive 44 saves. Concordia led in shots 44-28 but failed to finish any opportunities.
In game two Concordia put a few in the net, scoring 3 including a powerplay goal early in the 3rd, but Lake Forest held on after that. It was a wild 1st period, Victoria Liu scored an early PP goal 3:37 in to give the Foresters an early 1-0 lead, but that’s when the chaos began. Lake Forest would score at the 14:04 mark, only to have Concordia score 34 seconds later at 14:38 and once more at 15:14, only 36 seconds after the previous goal. 3 goals in a matter of 1 minute 10 seconds…
Once again, goaltending for Lake Forest saved them, Chelsea Denniss had another impressive game, making 40 saves on 43 shots, that’s 84 saves on 87 shots for the weekend. Meanwhile the Foresters only had 17 shots, but scored 4 of them, like game one.
Other Notable Results:
Friday:
Aurora 8-1 Lawrence
Marian 6-2 Dubuque
Saturday:
Aurora 8-0 Lawrence
Marian 3-1 Dubuque
WIAC
Being from the east, I’ve never gotten to see a WIAC game in-person before, but I finally got to. Along with seeing two men’s games (Saint Mary’s at UW-Stevens Point & St. Olaf at UW-Stevens Point), I saw #4 UW-River Falls at UW-Stevens Point on Thursday night.
UW-River Falls defeats UW-Stevens Point
Let’s just say it was quite lopsided, UWSP getting one goal, but River Falls had control pretty much for the entirety of the game and did whatever they wished with the puck. Goaltending for UWSP was quite good considering the circumstances, Emily Griege made 43 saves on 49 shots, while UWRF’s Jordan O’Connor had a relatively light night, only seeing 9 shots, but allowing 1 goal. River Falls took this one 6-1.
UW-Eau Claire defeats UW-Superior
Eau Claire outshot Superior 40-19, and Sophie Rausch continued to do her thing, scoring another pair of goals after netting a pair of hat tricks in a prior weekend. The Blugolds won 4-2 and will face a rough next few weeks in their schedule.
UWEC’s next four games: Rival #4 UW-River Falls at home, 2pm CST on 11/18 (Saturday), they then head out east to Middlebury, VT to face #3 Plattsburgh State at 6pm EST on 11/25, the next day they face either #6 Middlebury or Endicott, result depending, and finally they return to the west for a road game vs Hamline on 12/5 (Tues.). This stretch will be a pivotal factor in the Blugolds NCAA tournament hopes as they’ll need as many pairwise points as they can get with the WIAC being the lone conference to not receive an auto-bid into the tournament via a conference championship (6 teams required for auto-bid, per NCAA rules).
Other Notable Results:
Friday:
#9 UWEC 5-2 Northland
Saturday:
#4 UWRF 14-1 Northland
