Women’s hockey begins road trip in St. Cloud in attempt to end skid

With an amazing start to the season, the tides have completely turned on the Minnesota State women’s hockey team. It was their best start since 2003, which found the team at 5-1 overall through their first six games.

The team has had a rough past four games however, which included playing No. 3 Minnesota and No. 1 Wisconsin in back to back series’. Wisconsin and Minnesota have been some of the top programs in women’s hockey for many years, which recently found the Badgers with a national championship last season. 

The Badgers and Gophers have won 12 of the past 17 national championships, and the Mavericks knew the two would be tough to beat. They could not get it done however in either of the series’ and now find themselves back at .500 through ten games.

“We knew we would have to play well from the goal out… We wanted to shorten the game and make it close and we got exactly what we wanted there” said women’s hockey coach John Harrington in regard to game one of the series against Wisconsin.

The team went in with the same goal for game two, according to Harrington, and did just that before the Badgers eventually pulled away behind a Makenna Webster hat trick in the third period. It was a tough loss of two games for the Mavericks, but they have now proven to themselves that they can contend with the top teams in the nation as long as they play to the best of their abilities and strictly follow the game plan. 

Coach Harrington is excited for what his team brought to the table against the Badgers, saying “I think we gained some confidence in our ability to play against the top teams.” 

Next up for the Mavericks is a two series road trip, first to St. Cloud and then to Ohio State, before returning home to face St. Thomas. The St. Cloud Huskies have been a great matchup for the Mavs in the two teams’ history, with nearly an even split with the Huskies holding the edge.

The Mavericks won the last meeting between the two teams which ended in a 4-2 win in St. Cloud, and now the teams meet again in the same spot for their first of two matchups this season. St. Cloud comes into the series 2-4-1, after struggling mightily against No. 2 Ohio State this past weekend.

The Huskies got outscored 15-3 in the two games against Ohio State, and will now look to not only improve their record to 4-4-1 on the season, but also get back on track after getting smacked by a very good Ohio State team. The Mavericks will also use these two games to bounce back after their tough few losses, but will look to pad their resume in the hopes of bringing their record to 6-4 before facing the same No. 2 Ohio State team the following weekend.