By Ryan Stieg
The fourth Division I season of St. Thomas women’s hockey has begun and the Tommies are off to a fantastic start thanks to a 9-1 blowout win Sunday over Manitoba.
Not surprisingly UST head coach Joel Johnson was pleased with his team’s dominant performance and was in a good mood during Monday’s press conference.
“Great first exhibition game to start the year after a couple weeks of practice,” he said. “We were excited to finally compete against someone else and I thought our players did a great job. We competed well, we got some scoring. I love the fact that we had a shooter’s mentality, and we certainly created a lot of offense. Part of that was expected with Manitoba playing their third game in three days. We certainly have some areas to improve as well, and we really appreciate the University of Manitoba to come down and play three games back-to-back against different college opponents as a way to help us and I think it was a great weekend.”
The Tommies jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period on goals by Sadie Lindsay, Ella Boerger and Rylee Bartz, and never looked back as they blew the game open with four more goals in the second.
Johnson said that his incoming freshmen and the players he nabbed out of the transfer portal, including Lindsay, have added some much-needed scoring depth to the roster.
“We’ve had larger roster sizes before, but we lacked some in key areas,” he said. “Our incoming players and freshmen this year are really doing a good job both with scoring depth and goaltending. We added a goaltender, so we’re deeper at that position as well. They’re having an immediate impact. They did yesterday on the ice and I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll compete in the WCHA eventually.”
The exhibition win may have been fun, but now the regular season is about to begin as Post University comes to town this weekend. The Eagles struggled last season to an 8-28-1 record and Johnson said he doesn’t quite know what to expect from them.
“A lot of unknowns as we get ready to play this weekend with Post,” he said. “I haven’t seen them play and there’s no film to watch. If we go back to last year, they have a brand-new coach and several new players. So, we know it’s going to be a totally different group. I always think when a new coach comes in, it provides a different energy. We really don’t know, so we’re focusing on what we’re going to try to do ourselves this week and we’ll see on Friday night when the puck drops how we can make adjustments.”
Puck drop is set for 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Mendota Heights.