John Koenig

Defense and teamwork were two of the many key elements which kept the UW-Eau Claire women’s hockey team in a 1-1 tie against nationally ranked UW-Superior.

“It was our strongest game of the season,” said senior co-captain Crystal Wasem. “Everyone stayed positive. It was cool to see the team play as hard as we did for all 65 minutes.”

Head coach Mike Collins echoed Wasem’s sentiments.

“The team was very patient with the puck in the neutral zone, and both our zone and man defense was excellent,” he said. “Everyone who played contributed.”

The game’s only period of scoring was the second, and the Blugolds were the first to score at 7:33 when Martina Korinek took the puck in unassisted.

The Yellowjackets fought back and tied the game at 15:13 on a power play goal, but both teams were kept silent throughout the third and overtime periods.

Wasem also attributes some of the team’s success to their consistent performances in the past week of practice.

“Coach switched it up a bit to keep things less repetitive and keep the flow going,” she said. “We didn’t have one bad day of practice, and all week we were talking on the ice and communicating better than usual.”

Before the game, Collins said he felt it was a make or break moment for the Blugolds.

“Looking at the standing, I saw that we couldn’t afford to lose anymore games if we wanted to make the playoffs,” he said. “All season we’ve had some heartbreaking losses, and out record is not an indication of how good the team really is.”

Collins said the team has been hampered by injuries all year, but that they never quit working.

Collins was not the only person to feel that way.

“During the post-game handshake, UW-Superior head coach Dan Laughlin came up to me and said ‘I cannot believe how hard your team worked,’ ” Collins said. “It’s the best compliment a coach can get from
another coach.”

Eau Claire was riding a wave of momentum going into the game, but was unable to break a 2-2 tie, even though they dominated shots against the Lions 43-14.

“We need to score more than one goal to put ourselves in a better position to win,” Collins said. “Coming off a big battle against Superior, we just couldn’t bury the puck in the net against Finlandia.”

Finlandia struck first at 10:59 in the first period, but Eau Claire responded at 3:35 in the second when Wasem took the puck unassisted for her first goal of the year.

The Lions took back the lead at 14:11 in the second, but the Blugolds answered back late in the third period when Margaret Campbell and Laura Brackey fed a pass to Lauren Havard at 12:33 to even the score at 2-2.

Both teams were unable to produce a goal in overtime, and the game ended in a tie. Despite only scoring twice out of 43 shots, Collins remained optimistic.

“We did a good job in a lot of areas,” he said. “We held them in the neutral zone and made good first passes.”

“There were definitely spots in the game where the team played great,” Collins said. “But overall, I felt we underachieved after such a great game Friday night.”