D-III Women’s Weekend Review: A Saints Sweep, Hamline’s Here, Cadets Roll, Eps Excite, & a Lake Placid Showcase!

This past weekend we saw some great matchups and some teams really stood out here whether it be due to big wins or meaningful results. We’re here to review it all and highlight some of the most intriguing storylines coming from this past weekend of play!

A new era for St. Scholastica Women’s Hockey

I talked about St. Scholastica coming into this season for various reasons, but the main reason being their new coaching staff assembled of players who during their playing careers had incredible amounts of success. Head Coach Sydney Brodt, Assistant Coach McKenzie Revering, & Assistant Coach Callie Hoff. I really did believe the Saints could be the most improved team in the MIAC this season.

Currently, the Saints sit at 5-7-1, but they’ve made huge strides this season, taking various highly ranked teams to the wire:

• Led #1 Wisconsin-River Falls 2-0 after the 1st period, letting in the game-winning-goal with 16 minutes left in the 3rd, falling 4-3.
• Tied #3 Augsburg 1-1 and won the shootout on the road.
• Trailed #11 Wisconsin-Eau Claire 2-1 and lost 3-1 on an empty-netter with less than a minute remaining.
• Lost in overtime 3-2 against current #7 Hamline.
• Swept #6 St. Norbert College, winning 3-1 & 1-0 this past weekend.

Prior to this season, St. Scholastica hadn’t won more than eight games since the 2021-22 season (12-10-2) and they’ve already tied their win total from last season (5-19-1) with 12 games remaining, plus MIAC playoffs if they qualify.

Their goaltender has shined all season, but she shined brighter than ever this past weekend against #6 St. Norbert. Senior goaltender Makenzie Cole made 44 saves in the 3-1 victory & 38 saves in her shutout victory the following night. Earlier this season, she made 35 saves in the 1-1 tie (shootout win) against #2 Augsburg. Cole currently sits with a stellar .929 save-percentage and 2.33 GAA despite her 4-7-1 record.

Besides goaltending, the Saints have had a balanced attack in terms of production. Two players with eight, two players with seven, then more points spread across the board with 17 different players having registered a point. Their leading scorer is Grace Chapman who had her highlight of the season against #1 Wisconsin-River Falls where she registered a hat trick. Leading in assists is Sophomore Alaina Hedberg with six.

St. Scholastica still has plenty of tests coming up that will certainly lead to excitement. Don’t be shocked if they knock off Saint Mary’s or a struggling Gustavus squad that’s run into some troubles this season, which includes an uncharacteristic loss to Concordia-Moorhead and a team [Gustavus] that has yet to sweep a MIAC weekend. Keep your eye on the Saints as the MIAC playoff picture will start to form once we get further into the second semester of play. St. Scholastica currently sits in last place, winless in league play with three points, but great performance in the non-conference. We’ll see if they can make a push as there’s still plenty of hockey left to get that last spot.

Hamline runs through the East and continues their push

Hamline (11-2-0) was a team in the preseason I was very excited about for various factors, but the two main factors being they already had an incredibly good roster put together by former Head Coach Whitney Colbert, who resigned from the program after the birth of her new baby girl. Plus the fact they were getting back a former Piper assistant coach in Jake Bobrowski who’s finally found his way back home in Minneapolis, MN with the Pipers.

Most recently, the Pipers returned from their trip to Boston to blowout Wisconsin-Stevens Point 9-0, outshooting them (on net) 71-18 and overall 122-34… setting a new shots-on-goal record which was previously 67 against St. Olaf on November 23, 2019 (thanks for the stat Hamline Athletics).

In their trip out east, Hamline faced (at the time) #7 Endicott and handled them quite easily 5-1 after the Gulls were beginning to turn many heads after their big wins over Plattsburgh & Middlebury. Then, after a 5pm ET puck drop in Beverly, MA, the Pipers headed down to Boston for a 1pm ET puck drop the following day against the Beacons of UMass-Boston… Still, it didn’t matter, Hamline beat the Beacons by the same score of 5-1.

So far, the Pipers are electing to go with a rotational system for the goaltending situation. They’ve got a problem many teams would love to have, but few do. Sophomore Harper Powell has started seven games and Senior Kendra Nordick has started six, both putting up impressive numbers. Powell holds a GAA of 1.06 & a save-percentage of .954, whereas Nordick holds numbers of 1.17 & .935, nearly identical.

Leading the way on the points side of things is Abigail Chamernick with 19 (5G, 14A), while Grace Delmonico & Ashlyn Abrahamson are both close behind with 16 & 15 respectively.

Hamline still has plenty of tests remaining on the schedule, we get to see them face St. Olaf, #2 Augsburg, & #8 Gustavus to end the season. In a much-improved MIAC this season, arguably the best league in D-III so far, anything can happen and the Pipers are looking like they may have more to them than just a potential MIAC championship.

The Ephs are back?

Williams has been a team that’s been on the outside looking in during the past few seasons of NESCAC play as the big two in Middlebury & Amherst have had their way. Hamilton & Colby have also had their fair share of success including a few NCAA tournament appearances and a first-ever Continental Frozen Four appearance in 2022-23. Williams is the only team other than the Panthers & Mammoths to win a conference championship since 2016, the Ephs took it home in the 2019 season, going 21-5-2 under current Head Coach Meghan Gillis.

Currently, the Ephs hold a solid record of 8-1-2, including an opening weekend series ‘split’ against #3 Amherst (9-0-2), tying and losing. Very much like Amherst, Williams is being led by their Senior goaltender Erin Pye. Pye is putting up ridiculous numbers, currently holding a .971 save-percentage & 0.98 GAA in 10 games started. Here are her 10 starts:

• 51 saves (1 GA) vs Amherst
• 37 saves (1 GA) vs Amherst
• 44 saves (1 GA) vs Norwich, including her team getting outshot 22-0 in the 1st period.
• 34 saves (1 GA) vs Western New England
• 29 saves (2 GA) vs Wesleyan
• 39 saves (1 GA) vs Plattsburgh
• 20 saves (shutout) vs Lake Forest
• 29 saves (shutout) vs Utica
• 29 saves (1 GA) vs Wesleyan
• 23 saves (2 GA) vs Wesleyan

Currently, the Ephs sit a well-deserved 6th in the NPI as of 1/12/2026 in a weaker-than-normal year so far for the NESCAC in terms of SOS, as the MIAC and WIAC have begun catching up this season it seems.

Williams hasn’t exactly lit up the scoreboard this season, but most NESCAC’s usually don’t as it’s a more defensive style, especially in league play. The Ephs average an even three goals-per-game, but when you’re only allowing one per game, you don’t need to score much… Look for the Ephs to continue their strong season and it’ll be fun in the coming weeks when we get to see them against #4 Middlebury, Colby, & Bowdoin who was off to a hot start before their 0-2-0 weekend to Trinity.

The Cadets are doing what’s needed for an NCAA At-Large bid

In the preseason we discussed heavily how Norwich had the potential after a great head coaching hire following the departure of former coach Sophie Leclerc-Doherty to make it back to the NCAA tournament. Now, we sit after 14 games and see the Cadets with a record of 12-2-0, doing exactly what they need to do… win every conference game and do well in the non-conference… Head Coach Justin Simpson is off to a great start in his Norwich tenure, winning all their games besides Plattsburgh & Williams. Most recently, the Cadets won their annual new year’s tournament, defeating Oswego 3-2 & their former-NEHC rival Elmira 5-2 quite handily.

The reason we make note of Norwich needing to essentially win every game on their schedule is due to the Little East not receiving an auto-bid to the NCAA tournament for the conference champion. Plus, the strength-of-schedule factor (36th out of 79th due their solid non-conference slate thus far) will hurt the Cadets as well due to the Little East being weaker than a fair number of conferences. Currently, UMass-Boston is the only other team in the league with an overall above .500 record (8-4-1), everyone else is below .500. If the Cadets can remain perfect (at worst, drop one conference game), they should be good for an at-large bid depending how the conference tournament shakes out. They’ve got a massive midweek away game at #3 Amherst coming up Wednesday – January 21, where a loss won’t necessarily hurt them due to Amherst’s high NPI rating. Simply getting a team such as Amherst on your resumé win/loss/tie will help you if you’re a team with a weaker league such as Norwich. However, if the Cadets were to beat the Mammoths, we could be in first round bye territory if they were to win out the rest of the way as they currently sit #4 in the NPI as of 1/12/2026 and a win over Amherst on the resumé would hold massive implications for their rating, potentially allowing for them to lose an extra LEC game in the worst-case scenario.

Most recently, Norwich shutout Castleton 11-0 cumulatively on the weekend (5-0 & 6-0), continuing their LEC dominance, outscoring opponents 39-2 in their first eight league games…

A Lake Placid Showcase between the Roos & Pioneers

This game recap is more to simply showcase the cool event that happened this past weekend. Utica University (3-10-1) & SUNY Canton (8-4-1) played a two-game series in the famous Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, NY where the two teams played to a 2-2 tie in game one and a 3-2 Roos victory in game two. Here are some photos from the two games & thank you for making it to the end if you’re reading this!