St. Peter, Minn. – The Gustavus Adolphus women’s hockey team began its 2014 season Tuesday evening with a 3-1 victory over No. 9 UW-Superior at Don Roberts Ice Rink. Following a scoreless first period, Gustavus took advantage of a penalty-ridden second period with a pair power play goals to grab a 2-0 lead. The Gusties added a third unanswered goal late in the third before UW-Superior was able to get on the scoreboard. Goaltender Lindsey Hibbard stopped 22-of-23 shots as the Gusties handed the Yellowjackets (2-1-0) their first loss of the season.
“Our team was incredibly nervous to start and had a tough time containing their excitement leading up to the first game,” said head coach Mike Carroll. “That being said, I think that’s a good thing and you can’t really fault them for that, especially for how hard they’ve been working. Those first five or six minutes of the game you could tell we just needed to settle down, but overall, I thought there were a lot of great building blocks to take away and a lot of things to be happy about.”
Senior captain Carolyn Draayer (Deephaven, Minn.) got the scoring going for Gustavus when she helped the Gusties take advantage of a five-on-three opportunity by taking assists from first-year Erica Power (Lakeville, Minn.) and Allison Eder-Zdechlik (Jr., Stillwater, Minn.) and slid the Gusties’ first goal of the season past Yellowjacket goalkeeper Megan Leikkari to give Gustavus a 1-0 lead seven minutes into the second period.
Less than five minutes later at the 17:31 mark, Katie Aney (Rochester, Minn.) knocked in was what Gustavus’s second consecutive power play goal amongst a pileup in front of the Yellowjacket net to extend the Gustie lead to 2-0. Katy Fuller (Fy., Minneapolis, Minn.) and Marissa Brandt (Sr., Vadnais Heights, Minn.) were credited with the assists on Aney’s first collegiate goal.
“Our first-years certainly came to play tonight,” said Carroll. “Right now, we sort of have them scattered throughout our lines in order to try and bring them along with our veterans and I thought they played well in their first game.”
The Gusties added an insurance goal at 16:44 in the third period when Power scored her first career goal off assists from fellow first-years Diana Draayer (Deephaven, Minn.) and Rachel Skoglund (Forest Lake, Minn.) to put the Gusties on top 3-0.
“Our last goal was a really nice tick-tack-toe that came from three of our rookies and we really needed that for insurance,” said Carroll.
The Gustie defense was nearly perfect, as goaltender Lindsey Hibbard (Jr., Princeton, Minn.) made several breakaway saves and the penalty kill negated UW-Superior’s two power play opportunities. Yellowjacket goaltender Megan Leikkari suffered her first loss of the season after allowing three goals and making 26 saves.
Gustavus finished with a 29-23 shots advantage while going 2-for-9 nine on the power play.
“Lindsey made some huge saves throughout the course of the game that really kept us in it,” said Carroll. “We still have a lot of things that need work. We need to get better at winning races and get more of our shots off. There were a lot of poke checks in the neutral zone where we just tried to hang onto the puck a little bit too long, but that’s to be expected in our first game. We also need to work on our strategies in the last two minutes of the period…owning the blue line and just a lot of things that are still a bit new to our first-years. Overall though, very happy with our performance and getting a win against a tough team.”
No. 8 Gustavus will wait more than a week before playing its next game against Concordia College on Nov. 14 at Don Roberts Ice Rink. Opening face-off is set for 7 p.m.