UWS Women’s Hockey Picked To Finish Second in NCHA

Oct 24, 2012

Northland Sports Online

The Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) released its 2012-13 women’s hockey coach’s poll and the Yellowjackets have been tabbed the No. 2 team in the conference. It’s the exact same position that the Yellowjackets finished in a year ago. In fact, the 2012-13 polls have an uncanny resemblance to the final standings of last season.

Defending champion UW-River Falls was picked to win the conference, garnering six first-place votes and 190 points. The Yellowjackets were picked second, receiving three first-place votes and 162 points. Adrian received a first place vote and was pegged for third place. Followed by St. Scholastica in fourth place and Lake Forest in fifth place. St. Scholastica also received a first-place vote.

“We have such a competitive conference year in and year out that it is really tough to pick who will finish where before most teams have even played a game,” head coach Dan Laughlin said. “I think that’s why what you see in the poll is so close to the way the standings ended up last year. You use that as a guide and factor in what teams have coming back and what their new recruits are like. Put it all together and, in the minds of the coaches it appears, it shakes out much the same as last year.

“River Falls has been a really, really good team over the last several years and there’s no reason to think that they won’t be again this year. We have a lot of pieces coming back and have more depth. Adrian is always good, as we’ve seen in the playoffs the last couple of seasons and St. Scholastica just continues to improve every year. The top of our standings are going to be very tough this season. It should make for a great year.”

2012-13 NCHA Coach’s Poll

1) UW-River Falls (6)

2) YELLOWJACKETS (3)

3) Adrian (1)

4) St. Scholastica (1)

5) Lake Forest

6) St. Norbert

7) UW-Stevens Point

8) Concordia Wisconsin

8) UW-Eau Claire

10) Marian

11) Finlandia

The Yellowjackets will have a lot of key players back from last year’s team, most notably All-Americans Shanley Peters (Gnadenthal, Manitoba/Garden Valley Collegiate), Kaiti Graham (Middleville, Mich./Thornapple Kellogg) and Dani Schultz (Morris, Minn./Morris Area), who as a freshman was also the NCHA Player of the Year.

“It’s not easy to be the player of the year, so to do it as a freshman says a lot about the season Dani had and the kind of player she is,” Laughlin said. “We expect her to take the next step as a sophomore. She is a big part of what we want to do offensively and a big part of our forward group.”

Other key players up front include juniors Kelsey Firkus (Chilliwack, British Columbia/Chilliwack Senior Secondary), Kerry Mayhew (Littleton, Colo. /Heritage) and Alison Shrift (Traverse City, Mich. /West High School) as well as senior co-captain Chelsey Wierschem (Willmar, Minn. /Willmar). Also returning after missing most of last season is Ashley Martin (Superior, Wis. /Superior Senior), a senior who was granted an additional year of eligibility on an NCAA hardship.

“We think we have a very deep group of forwards. We have a lot of talent and skill up there that is returning,” Laughlin said. “We have that and we haven’t even discussed any of the freshmen that are coming in this year. We like our forwards a lot and think they are capable of scoring a lot. We’ll put them up against anyone in the league.”

Defensively, the Yellowjackets expect to be as good as ever. Always a hallmark of Laughlin-coached teams, the Yellowjackets surrendered just 50 goals in 28 games, an average of just 1.76 goals against per-game, one of the best numbers in the nation.

“We take a lot of pride in the defensive side of the game,” Laughlin said. “There is no reason why that would change this season. We have great goaltending and a solid, deep group of defense that we think will do an outstanding job of keeping the put out of our net.”

In addition to Graham, who emerged as a two-way threat last season, juniors Sheryl Kaskiw (Souris, Manitoba/Souris Collegiate) and Teal Crosson (Alexander, Manitoba/Crocus Plains), a converted forward, will bring experience and consistency to the blue line. In goal Peters, who seized the starting job between the pipes late in the year, returns and will share duties with freshman Megan Leikkari (Thunder Bay, Ontario).

“We have a mobile group back there. They can move and they can move the puck well so we are comfortable with whoever we put out there at any time in the game,” Laughlin said. “And if things do break down we have Shanley and Megan in goal. We feel like we have as good of a duo as there is in goal.”

A year ago, the biggest issue that the Yellowjackets were facing was depth. When injuries and illness hit the team last season, there were games where they were dressing 12 players. This season, the Yellowjackets are carrying 24 players, more than Laughlin has had on the roster in a long time and adding the depth necessary to ice a full roster if the same thing happens again.

“That was our biggest issue last season. By the end of the season things really caught up with us on the injury front. The girls that were healthy played so much that they just wore down,” Laughlin said. “That was a big thing for us this recruiting year. We had to make sure that we brought in enough players to account for injury and illness. We couldn’t go through another year where we were constantly rolling 12-14 healthy players out there. We needed to address our depth and I think we did.”

The Yellowjackets will open the season on Friday, October 26 on the road at Hamline University. Game time is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. Their first home game will be on Friday, November 9 when they host league favorite UW-River Falls at Wessman Arena. The puck will drop at 4:00 p.m.

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