Women’s Ice Hockey: Augsburg University Auggies vs. St. Catherine University Wildcats (Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com)
Our season previews continue as the 2025-2026 Men’s & Women’s Division III hockey regular season nears closer. Today, we look at the women’s side of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC).
The MIAC features:
Augsburg
Bethel
Concordia (Minn.)
Gustavus Adolphus
Hamline
Saint Benedict
Saint Mary’s
St. Catherine
St. Olaf
St. Scholastica
2024-2025 Overview
Last season we saw a new winner of the MIAC outside of Gustavus who’s run the league for the past few decades. Augsburg, under first year Head Coach Elizabeth ‘Biz’ Bauer, won the MIAC regular season title and conference playoff title. Although she wasn’t good enough for MIAC Coach of the Year, she was good enough for D-III National Coach of the Year.
Bauer and her Auggies received the first-round bye as the #1 seed, where they defeated the 9-seed St. Norbert 4-2. They would move on to face the Frozen Four host and defending national champions Wisconsin-River Falls, losing 4-2 in the semifinals en route to UWRF’s second straight title.
Rewinding back a few weeks, the MIAC semifinal and title games were a thrilling showcase of the MIAC, Saint Mary’s with a coach in his first year with the program, Head Coach Heath Isaacson & Augsburg needed four overtimes to settle it, with the Auggies winning that one 3-2. The following week, Augsburg and the Gusties of Gustavus needed an overtime to settle it, where the Auggies won 3-2, winning their first MIAC title since 2000.
We saw two bids come from the MIAC, Gustavus and Augsburg. As mentioned, Augsburg made the Frozen Four and Gustavus fell to St. Norbert 3-1 at home, the first time those two had faced each other since 2018. This season, the #5 Gusties open their season with a pair of games in De Pere, WI against the #6 ranked Green Knights, a rematch of last year’s first round right off the bat!
Returning Production
Looking at the league and the returning production via our guy Scott Huston, we find some interesting results:
St. Scholastica returns a little over 90% of production from last season, leading the MIAC. Followed by St. Kate’s who returns a massive 89% of production from last season.
Looking at last year’s top of the table, Augsburg will return 78% of production, along with their star goaltender who enters her sophomore season – Kayla Simonson, the DIIIHockeyNews.com West Rookie of the Year. Meanwhile Gustavus & Saint Mary’s both return about 65% apiece as they look to dethrone the defending champs Augsburg.
Hamline returns just over 50%, losing a lot, but I think they’ll still compete for the top under Bobrowski.
Dark Horses
Hamline to me is a major dark horse in this league with Head Coach Jake Bobrowski returning to the Pipers after bouncing around a few spots as of late. Bobrowski was an assistant under former Head Coach Natalie Darwitz during her six-year tenure with Hamline (2015-21) where they compiled a record of 88-41-14 and a pair of NCAA tournaments, making the Frozen Four in both and was the runner-up to SUNY Plattsburgh in 2019. Hamline loses quite a lot, just under 50% of production leaves the Pipers, plus the entire coaching staff, but they’ve got extremely solid goaltending returning in senior Kendra Nordick and Bobrowski who’s an extremely well-versed coach.
Another one I lean heavy with is St. Scholastica and their dynamite coaching staff they’ve brought on this season. Obviously, the best players don’t always make the best coaches, but in this case, everyone has experience coaching and their playing careers are second to none… For starters, Head Coach Sydney Brodt Univ of Minnesota Duluth ’20 won the inaugural PWHL Walter Cup with the Minnesota Frost, was a member of Team USA, lastly, she was only one of two players in the history of Minnesota Duluth to serve as a team captain for three seasons of her career.
Women’s Ice Hockey: Hamline University Pipers vs. St. Catherine University Wildcats (Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com)
Assistant Coach for the Saints include McKenzie Revering Univ of Minnesota Duluth ’21 where she held the captaincy role her senior year. Also, an assistant coach is Callie Hoff Wisconsin-River Falls ’22 where she won the Laura Hurd award as the best player in Division III Women’s Hockey. Hoff compiled 197 points (97G, 100A) in her five-year career with the Falcons. Hoff also played for Team USA in the 2023 Universiade in Lake Placid, NY, alongside other Division I & III players.
Again, this doesn’t mean St. Scholastica will be contending for a MIAC title, but I do think a staff like this does something mentally for players and recruiting in future season. Look for the Saints to become a potentially most-improved team of anyone this season and beyond.
Final Thoughts
My final thoughts regarding the MIAC are that I think this league has gotten exponentially better and extremely good depth after I think it had a little down period other than the top teams year after year. This will be an intriguing season because of course Gustavus is not going anywhere after taking a year off of the MIAC title, Augsburg returns a fair amount, including their star sophomore goaltender. We will see how Coach Bauer does in her second season at the helm, now through her first full recruiting cycle as the head coach.
Saint Mary’s is another one, after the late departure of almost Milwaukee School of Engineering, almost Saint Mary’s, now Adrian head coach Chad Davis, the Cardinals and Coach Isaacson will be a team to lookout for after their thrilling semifinal game against the Auggies last season and their fair share of wins against conference and non-conference opponents. I think the MIAC will be one of the best leagues this season and their overall depth from top to bottom is at a level we haven’t seen in a while, if ever.
