2025-26 Women’s Preview & Analysis: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC)

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 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC).

The WIAC features:

Beloit
Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Wisconsin-River Falls
Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Wisconsin-Superior

2024-2025 Overview

Well, they did it again, in their own building, again… Wisconsin-River Falls defeated Elmira 4-1 at home, Augsburg 4-2 at home, & Amherst 3-1 at home, as they hosted the Women’s Division III Hockey Frozen Four for the second-straight season as it was predetermined for Hunt Arena in 2025 and earned as a campus highest-seed site in 2024.

Also coming out of River Falls, another Laura Hurd winner in Bailey Olson who was simply a different caliber of player than everyone else on the ice in every game it seemed. Olson, the second Falcon in a row to win the award and fourth all-time for UWRF (tied with Middlebury with the most Laura Hurd winners (4)):

2025 – Bailey Olson
2024 – Maddie McCollins
2022 – Callie Hoff
2017 – Dani Sibley

It’s simply unbelievable the talent legendary Head Coach Joe Cranston has developed at the helm of the Falcons; his career record sits at 518-160-48 including his undefeated 31-0-0 season in 2024. Minus the covid-year, since his reign began in the 1999-00 season, Cranston’s Falcons have:

• Won 2 National Championships
• Made 7 Frozen Fours
• Won 20+ games every season since 2009
• Made 16 NCAA tournaments
• Won 14 WIAC Conference Championships
• Won 13 WIAC Regular Season Titles

Put him in the Wisconsin Hockey Hall of Fame already… screw politics.

Last note and WIAC season-specific, River Falls ran through the WIAC regular season and playoffs, going 11-0-1 in conference play (their only blemish coming against UW-Stevens Point) and won their three playoff games by a combined 18-2 (8-1 vs UWS, 6-0 vs UWS, 4-1 vs UWEC).

Returning Production

Looking at the league and the returning production via our guy Scott Huston, we find some interesting results:

River Falls you would think lost a lot after winning two-straight titles, but nope! They return the most raw points (343) and their percentage returned is just about 72%… They’re absolutely loaded and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Superior returns the least in the league, after graduating 12 seniors they are left with 25% of production, it looks like we’ll need a new leading goalscorer and assistmen in Superior, WI.

Stevens Point returns just about 69% and I think we’ll be in for another season of solid play, but not good enough to contend with the top. But hey, they stole a point from the Falcons last year, why not again???

Dark Horses

I don’t have a dark horse in this league as I think the gap is too far between River Falls and the rest…

Eau Claire loses their longtime Head Coach Erik Strand to the University of Vermont (NCAA D-I Women) as an assistant. Strand leaves Eau Claire after rebirthing the program and building it into a contender, Strand leaves with:

• 183-68-17 record
• 4 NCAA tournaments
• 2 Conference Championships
• 2 Regular Season Titles

Prior to Strand taking over, Eau Claire had an overall record of 140-215-38, after he left, the record has improved to 323-283-55… I don’t root for teams, I do root for people, and Strand will always be someone I root for.

Although the Blugolds do return a fair amount of production, I can’t see anyone but River winning the WIAC. We’ll find out what Jarrad Vroman, a UW-Eau Claire alum who coached a few seasons as an assistant at Augsburg on the men’s side can do at the helm of the Blugolds.

Superior simply lost too much production and leadership for me to pick them, only returning just under 24% of total production, graduating 12 seniors last season, including two goalies.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts are this is River Falls’ league to lose and not to be repetitive, but they’re setup to win another national title and no one should be surprised if we see a third-straight Frozen Four in Hunt Arena as this season is a highest-seed campus site host, next season in 2027 will be at SUNY Plattsburgh as a predetermined site, but for now, it runs through River Falls. The main thing holding them back from hosting again would be the NPI disadvantage they have, but the quality of facility makes up for it if they were in a tie again with someone such as Augsburg, who likely wouldn’t meet the needed requirements in order to host the event.

I’m interested to see how Superior fairs in a year where the Bre Simon era can really take effect, she’ll be bringing in a nearly new roster plus what she already has, along with the fact the Yellowjackets’ are coming off one of their best seasons of late.

It’ll be a mystery with the Blugolds. They’ve got a solid roster, but new coach. Who knows? Their first game vs River Falls is at home on November 22 at 2pm CST, we’ll learn a lot…

Stevens Point I feel bad I haven’t mentioned much along with Beloit, but Beloit needs a lot of time, maybe they can win a game or two, but an oddsmaker would have it at + odds, let’s hope for the best with this new program entering hockey.

The Pointers always seem to have solid goaltending, I’m curious how many games we look at the scores and see them leading River Falls or someone 1-0 in the 2nd period and we get all excited in anticipation of the ending. This is a common occurrence it seems year-after-year.