D-III Women’s Week in Review: Blugolds’ Back? Saints’ Shock, Cobbers’ Celebrate, & the NESCAC is underway!

 

A wild week of hockey gave us some results that to most are eye-opening, to some not a surprise, but regardless, we were treated to another week of great hockey on the women’s side of D-III hockey.

The Blugolds shutout their rival and back-to-back defending champs

#1 Wisconsin-River Falls entered this game holding a record of 9-0-1 in their last 10 matchups versus their conference-rivals Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The last time Eau Claire defeated the Falcons goes back to 2023, which isn’t necessarily a historical amount of time, but with the number of times these two see each other per season with normal conference play and then playoffs, it feels like a longer time than it is.

Last season, the Blugolds struggled mightily with goaltending. Their offense and defensive statistics weren’t bad by any means and were quite solid, but goaltending was a major problem throughout the season, amplified when they played River Falls. Now, first year Head Coach Jarrad Vroman seems to have struck gold with his freshman goaltender Kambelle Freije. The Grand Forks, ND native in her three starts holds a .973 save-percentage, along with a stellar 0.67 goals-against.

In the Saturday showdown in Eau Claire, River Falls was shutout for the first time since December 7, 2022 versus #1 Gustavus and the first time versus the Blugolds since November 20, 2021.

This game featured minimal penalties, a very clean game for the most part as a viewer. The lone penalties in this game were both from UWEC coming in the 1st period, resulting in no goals.

We would be scoreless through two periods in a game that could’ve had plenty of goals if it wasn’t for solid goaltending. The first goal came from Madisyn Krumholz at the 04:15 mark of the 3rd period of play, breaking the seal. It would be followed up by her teammate Keira Bolt who fired a shot into the crowd in front of the net, finding its way into the net to double the lead for the Blugolds.

In the final minutes, River Falls tested Freije mightily, but she kept everything out of the net, leading to an empty net goal from Krumholz for her second of the game, sealing the deal for Eau Claire. Krumholz led the way on the offensive end, finishing the game with a pair of goals and an assist to Bolt.

UWRF led in shots 35-24, Jordan O’Kane making 21 saves in the loss.

As these two usually do, we’ll see them play two more times on separate weekends this season, next matchup being on February 7, 2026 in Hunt Arena & the season finale back in Hobbs Ice Arena on February 22, 2026.

St. Scholastica continues to impress

Now, before the thoughts come in from the casuals that we’re talking about a team who’s 2-4-1 on the season, we need to realize what we’re seeing happen. St. Scholastica split with #2 Augsburg this past weekend, tying 1-1 (winning shootout for extra conference point) on Friday and getting handled 6-1 Saturday.

The Saints went 5-19-1 last season, 7-16-2 the prior season, and 8-16-2 a year prior… not necessarily competitive on a consistent basis either. Now, we’ve seen them take #1 Wisconsin-River Falls to the wire, leading them after the opening period and now tying (and beating in a shootout) #2 Augsburg… The night-to-night consistency needs to improve if St. Scholastica wants to make a push for a playoff spot in the MIAC, but so far so good in year one of the Sydney Brodt coaching era in Duluth.

On Friday, Augsburg led in shots 36-21, but goaltender Makenzie Cole had another great game, making 35 saves and coming up huge in the shootout for the vital conference point. The first period was scoreless, but the lone Auggie goal came on the powerplay at 08:33 of the 2nd by Payton Behr, which would hold up for the rest of the period. The Saints’ equalizer would come from Grace Chapman, who had a hat-trick vs River Falls, scoring on the powerplay late in the game at 17:11, sending the game to overtime and the eventual shootout.

Coming off the upset, Augsburg flat out dominated the next night, but the flurry of goals didn’t start early in the game. The Auggies led 1-0 after the 1st period, scored a pair of goals in the 2nd to lead 3-0 after 2 periods. Then, they notched an early powerplay goal in just over a minute and half to extend it to 4-0. The Saints’ lone goal came at 05:16 of the 3rd period, with the Auggies adding two more just after the midway mark of the period, ending this one in convincing fashion, 6-1.

The Auggies outshot St. Scholastica 44-22 and Marissa Paaske made 21 saves in the victory.

The Cobbers add to the Gusties early skid

Concordia-Minnesota, the Cobbers, haven’t been lighting it up this season in the win column so far, but pulled off a huge victory for not just this season, but the program itself. The Cobbers defeated the #6 Gusties 3-2 on Friday for only the second time in program history, the first dating back to the 2015-16 season where the Cobbers won a 6-5 thriller in Moorhead.

Gustavus, who’s not off to the start longtime Head Coach Mike Carroll likely wanted and/or imagined, sits at 3-3-0 overall and 2-2 in the MIAC after the first few weekends of conference play. Splitting their three weekends’ worth of games isn’t necessarily monumental, but for a program like Gustavus, they’re held to a higher standard like many other top teams, they expect themselves to win these types of games and so do we as fans/viewers. The reason I mention this is mainly because these were the games that you likely would want to get under your belt before your next stretch of hockey occurs… here’s the Gusties next seven games:

11/25/2025 @ #13 Wisconsin-Eau Claire
12/5/2025 vs #2 Augsburg
12/6/2025 @ #2 Augsburg
12/12/2025 vs #8 Adrian
12/13/2025 vs #8 Adrian
*European Tour
1/10/2026 vs #1 Wisconsin-River Falls
1/13/2025 @ #1 Wisconsin-River Falls

This is arguably the hardest upcoming seven-game-gauntlet for anyone in Division III women’s hockey and will show everyone who the Gusties really are this season. By no means is anyone counting them out, but it should be made note that this season so far has been very uncharacteristic from the Gusties. This stretch of games can either make them a national title contender once again, or it can essentially quiet all talks of that…

On Friday, the stat sheet would scream “how did this happen” to a casual fan, but watching most of the game, you could see that despite the incredible shot advantage for Gustavus (52-17), the Cobbers weren’t allowing the greatest of opportunities in the majority of those shots, and their goaltender Abby Huselid made 50 saves in the victory.

Gustavus struck first, taking the 1-0 lead, but it wouldn’t last long as the Cobbers scored a pair (one on the powerplay) to end the 1st period 2-1 Concordia. The Cobbers then extended the lead to 3-1 in the 2nd, holding off the Gusties who scored a late 3rd period goal with just under two minutes to go.

On Saturday, a similar story occurred in the shot category, the Gusties quite literally dominated, outshooting the Cobbers 42-9, but Huselid came up big again, making 39 saves despite the loss.

Another week of MIAC madness…

The entire NESCAC is underway, finally

The NESCAC finally began play last week for most, but this week was the first time we got to see #12 Colby take the ice. Early on, we’ve seen some surprises that not many probably had on their bingo card to start the year, but lots of promise as well.

The defending champions and national runner-up #3 Amherst (2-0-2) have “split” their first two weekend series in the form of wins & ties. The Mammoths split with Williams & Connecticut College, winning both shootouts in their respective ties.

#4 Middlebury has seemingly found ways to win, scoring the winner with less than five seconds left vs Hamilton on opening day and losing a shootout to Hamilton the next night. The Panthers blew-out Castleton 6-0 in a midweek road game, then swept Wesleyan 4-1 & 3-2 (OT), scoring the tying powerplay goal with less than three minutes remaining in the game, which was followed up by an opening-minute winner in overtime on Sunday.

#12 Colby & #15 Bowdoin faced off in a ranked series in which the teams split, Bowdoin taking game one 3-0 & the Mules winning game two 3-2 where Colby got out to a commanding 3-0 lead.