SAINT PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus women’s hockey team is using last season’s growth and success to continue to build despite whatever challenges the pandemic has brought its way.
“Our players have done a great job handling the obstacles that we’ve had,” said Head Coach Mike Carroll, who is in his 22nd season at the helm. “Being a college kid right now isn’t easy and they’ve had to adapt a lot of their social settings and aren’t able to see people in class. I think it’s brought our team closer together. It appears that they’re enjoying being around each other and aren’t taking anything for granted. In a normal season you work through January and it’s already been a long season and they sort of forget how much fun they have coming to the rink and hanging out with their teammates.”
Gustavus begins its season tomorrow at 7 p.m., hosting Bethel. As a team the Gusties were able to finish at the top fo the MIAC with a league record of 15-1-2 and 22-4-1 overall to take home a conference championship before falling in the NCAA opening round to UW-River Falls. The team ranked second in goals (90) and first in power play goals (21) in the MIAC.
“Every season is different, last year’s expectations were pretty wide ranging, we had a really young inexperienced team,” Carroll said. “We lost two senior leaders but our four captains are doing a great job picking up where they left off. We gained a lot of experience winning some big games, and we just continued to grow and got better and better as the year wore on. So even if you look at our roster it’s pretty young but we’ve got some real good experience from games last year and now we want to take the next step.”
With four captains and three of them being juniors, leadership is a major asset for the program.
Kristina Press (Jr., Cottage Grove) led the team in points with 11 goals and 21 assists, ranking fourth in the conference on both marks. Sydney Henrichs (Sr., Eden Prairie), Grace Schulte (Jr., Little Falls), and Kayla Vrieze (Jr., Eagan), stepped up to the plate last season to lock down the blue line with the highest penalty kill percentage in the conference.
“Last year we came into the season with virtually no experience in the goal in game situations,” Carroll said. “Through the course of the first half of the season last year we rotated the kids and Katie McCoy (So., Grafton, Wis.) ended up playing more than Emilia Helms-Leslie (Jr., Fairbanks, Alaska) did and had our bigger games so now we look for her to take the next step and now she knows the ropes. Emilia’s been working hard and she’s one of our hardest workers so hopefully that position will remain healthy and solid and we stay injury free.”
The Gusties finished the season with a conference-high save percentage of .947 and McCoy led the MIAC in goals against with an average of 0.99 and a .951 save percentage.
“I want us to get to where we’re winning our last game of the season and we’re on our way,” Carroll said. “I have a really good veteran, diverse coaching staff and stability, so that makes things much easier.”
A coaching staff that includes Steve Carroll who was the recipient of the Ted Brill Award in 2020.
“I think system-wise when you start a season it’s one of those things you have to get everyone on the same page about and so far we have a really good understanding of our systems,” Carroll said. “You can only work on so much during practice and we need to have a game so this is our first shot to get ready for the conference.”