MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. – Back in December, the St. Thomas women’s hockey team was swept by Minnesota State in a series that was pretty one-sided in favor of Mankato.
Friday night was much more balanced as the Tommies stayed with the more experienced Mavericks for the majority of the game, but the end result remained the same as MSU handed UST a 4-1 loss. The defeat is the 11th in a row for the Tommies, but associate head coach Bethany Brausen was feeling pretty good after the game.
“We talked just after the game here and we were talking about how it’s 5 minutes and some change on the clock and it’s 2-1 and it felt that way,” she said. “I think the score gets lopsided, Anna Solheim, our captain as we came walking off, said ‘It’s just tough when the score doesn’t reflect how the game went. We were in that thing.’ And we absolutely were."
Brausen said the team talked about the perception of the scoreboard, especially from an outside perspective.
"You look up the score and you see 4-1, and you’re like ‘Oh, Mankato blitzed them.’ But internally as a group, we look at that game and we’re like ‘It was 2-1 with five minutes left and we threw everything we could at them for two periods straight.’" Brausen said. "And sometimes the scoreboard doesn’t reflect that. So, I think there’s a healthy balance and tension there. We played a heck of a hockey game tonight and internally knowing that and showing up and playing that same way on Sunday, we really like our chances.”
ADVERTISEMENT
It didn’t take long for the Mavericks to test Tommies goalie Alexa Dobchuk, but the goalie stood tall. She made back-to-back saves on Madison Mashuga and Sydney Langseth and shortly after that, she denied Langseth again twice down low just over three minutes in. At the other end, the Tommies only had two decent scoring chances as Luci Bianchi was stopped by Mankato goalie Emerald Kelley at the 7:52 mark and Kelley did the same to Lauren Stenslie at the 11:32 mark.
MSU was kept at bay until the 13:02 mark when Mavericks center Brittyn Fleming tucked a rebound inside the right post and past a sprawling Dobchuk to get them on the scoreboard. The Mavericks held onto that slim 1-0 lead going into the second period.
The Tommies answered back though early in the second as Emma Larson got a pass in the low slot and lifted it over Kelley’s shoulder to tie the score at 1-1. However, the momentum didn’t last for UST as Fleming got a pass from Kelsey King on an offensive rush and scored to the left post to give the Mavericks a 2-1 lead. For the remainder of the period, it was pretty much the Dobchuk show as she made several saves to keep MSU from padding its advantage. Her best save of the period came with 11:39 remaining as she denied Alexis Paddington’s backhand shot after she skated uncovered from the right corner into the slot. She finished with 42 saves.
The Mavericks eventually pushed their lead to 3-1 on a third-period goal by Sydney Langseth at the 16:19 mark and Charlotte Akervik clinched the win with an empty netter. The Tommies had two decent chances to whittle down their deficit, but Stenslie and Abby Promersberger couldn’t beat Kelley.
Now, the Tommies’ focus shifts to Sunday as they’ll be taking on the Mavericks again, but this time, it’ll be outdoors at Mankato’s Blakeslee Stadium as part of Hockey Day Minnesota weekend festivities. Not surprisingly, UST is ecstatic to be competing in the event.
“To say looking forward to would be the understatement of the century,” Brausen said with a laugh. “The girls are so fired up for obvious reasons. I think playing outside is something that, especially as someone who’s from Minnesota, which so much of our team is, you just have that level of appreciation of going and playing in the backyard. Not only for that, but then just to see how we played tonight and that excitement, all of a sudden you get 24 hours or 36 hours to kind of reset and do it all again, that just adds to the excitement.”
Dobchuk agreed with her coach and said that the Tommies are going to build on this performance and hopefully, have a better outing Sunday.
“For us, as much as it sucks, it doesn’t seem like a 4-1 game,” she said. “I don’t think anybody who was in the building thought that it was a 4-1 game. I think it’s gonna mean more to us and we’re gonna learn more from it having that game be 4-1 rather than 2-1 at the end of it because we’re gonna be able to take all our disappointment and apply it to the next game and my coach said it the best, ‘I’d rather win the outdoor game if I were to choose.’”
ADVERTISEMENT
Minnesota State 4, St. Thomas 1
First period — 1. MSU, Brittyn Fleming 9 (Bryant, Bobyck) 13:02.
Second period — 2. UST, Emma Larson 1 (Solheim, Monrean) 1:44; 3. MSU, Fleming 10 (King) 2:39.
Third period — 4. MSU, Sydney Langseth 6 (King, Akervik) 16:19; 5. MSU, Charlotte Akervik 7 (Langseth) ENG 18:57.
Power-play opportunities: MSU 0 of 0; UST 0 of 2
Penalties: MSU 2-4; UST 0-0
Goalie saves: MSU, Emerald Kelley 11 (6-3-2); UST, Alexa Dobchuk 42 (13-18-11)
