We were treated to another good weekend of women’s hockey out west. We saw St. Olaf clinch a MIAC playoff spot for the first time since 2012, another Gustie made a mark in the record books, notching her 100th career point, a game-winning-goal scored with just 0.1 seconds left in the 3rd period, and we also had an upset in the NCHA!
St. Olaf #UmYahYah | #OlePride
St. Olaf (and their set of legendary social media hashtags) have clinched a playoff spot for the first time since the 2012 season where they finished 11-12-2. After this weekend, they’re 14-7-2 and have the most single season wins since the 2009-2010 season where they finished 14-11-2. Most recently, the Ole’s split the weekend series with Saint Benedict, winning 3-2 in OT and falling 3-0. The 3-2 victory was the only one they needed to secure themselves a postseason spot.
A few weeks ago, I discussed how the program had been in shambles for years until their most-recent head coach was hired, (who should be in consideration for a specific award at the end of the year if I may add). Just as a reminder, for those of you who say some programs are hopeless and only the big schools can get the good players and win, I’ll remind you what St. Olaf was in recent history:
2018-2020: 0-45-5
2013-2020: 21-137-17
3rd year Head Coach Tracy Johnson has certainly made a massive turnaround within the program, but her first year she went 0-23-2, when I asked her about her idea of the rebuild process and if she thought it would take longer than 2-3 years, she said:
“It was challenging to put an exact number to it, so I tried to remain focused on the rebuilding process, but at the time I also set a longer-term outcome goal that by the 23-24 season we’d be in the playoffs. I heard a lot of ‘no’s’ that first year so I have been fortunate to have incredible colleagues and mentors around me that have supported me in being patient with the process!”
In her first year as mentioned, the Ole’s went winless, a .040 win %, they now hold a .652 win % just two years later:
“I had a hunch we wouldn’t be waiting too long for a turnaround based on how extremely fortunate we are to be at St. Olaf where you have a great academic institution, beautiful campus, and the (when I started) new, on-campus arena. I am beyond proud of the hard work our staff and players have put in to see the results we have so far this season and the reaction within the program has been to pull some confidence from those favorable results while also continuing to work towards the things we haven’t done ‘yet’. The reaction from those around us has been so uplifting and supportive, which has been crucial as we continue into the last stretch of the year.”
I asked Coach Johnson about the feeling after the game winning goal was scored as they had a large crowd on hand that night, you can view the game winning goal here, as well as the team reaction in the locker room after, knowing they clinched a MIAC playoff spot. She responded:
“It feels very energizing and motivating to reach a goal our team set from the beginning of the year. We knew it would not be an easy road, but from the start we were ready to tackle it together. The crowd during the OT win was absolutely electric. We are very grateful for our campus community, athletic department, and families for making our home crowd the best atmosphere to play in front of!”
St. Olaf ends the regular season this weekend with a two-game home/away series vs #2 nationally ranked (#1 MIAC) Gustavus.
Another Gustie hits the 100 mark
Gustavus Senior Forward Hailey Holland notched her 100th career point on Saturday, just one of her six points on the weekend. Her first goal on Saturday vs Concordia (Minn.) was the milestone point, she then added two more points later in the game, finishing the weekend with 102 overall. She becomes the 14th Gustavus player to reach no. 100 and she achieved this in only 87 games. She ranks 12th in program history for points and is the second active 100-point Gustavus player, beside Tina Press, to reach this career mark. With her 102 points in 87 games, she currently averages 1.17 points-per-game.
Aurora jabs back after a heartbreaker
#5 Adrian (20-3-0) visited Aurora (18-4-1) this weekend for a pair of games. Adrian took game one 2-1 & Aurora punched back and won 5-1 the following night, but game one was wild. After a scoreless 1st period, Adrian’s Tia Lascelle opened up the scoring at the 8:24 mark of the 2nd period to make it a 1-0 game heading into the 3rd period. Peyton Elliott wasted no time out of the locker room, scoring 1:08 into the period to tie it up 1-1. Chaos would then pursue: both teams took timeouts in the last few minutes to try to draw something up, neither resulted in a goal, but as they say, play until the buzzer sounds.
There was then a cluster in front of the Aurora net, and it looked almost as if some players thought the game was over on the Aurora side or it was assumed the puck wasn’t going to come their way. Well, the puck was tossed towards the Spartan net and Adrian’s Une Bjelland scored at the 19:59.9 mark of the period (yes one-tenth of a second was left on the clock)… Which obviously won the game as essentially no time was left. We saw something similar in the national championship last year when Gustavus scored extremely late with tenths of a second left on the clock vs Middlebury to send it to overtime.
After that wild string of events, Aurora pulled the upset, winning 5-1 (2 empty-net goals). Darci Matson, the current point leader in the country with 56 points (27 goals, 29 assists) through 23 games, averaging 2.43 ppg (points-per-game), scored two goals and added an assist in the win to build on her already impressive individual season. I’ll point out that 24 of her points are against three teams (Finlandia, Northland, & Lawrence) with a combined record of 5-62-1 (yes, 5 wins, 62 losses, and 1 tie), so make of that what you may, but still an amazing season considering the numbers she’s been able to rack up thus far. She’s currently at 97 points through a mere 49 career games, expect her to hit the 100 mark in the quickly-approaching NCHA playoffs.
