#1 UW-River Falls remains undefeated, beating rival #6 UW-Eau Claire 4-3 in OT
UW-River Falls has been unstoppable this season, watching the game, the broadcaster mentioned when Eau Claire went up 1-0. It was only the second time River Falls trailed all season at any point in a game, the only other time was to UW-Superior in a game the Falcons won of course.
In this one between the top rivals of the WIAC, Eau Claire gave River Falls arguably their best game all season including the matchups with #2 Gustavus. Sophie Rausch got her Blugolds on the board just before the midway mark of the 1st period, which was matched a brisk four minutes later by Madison Kadrlik to tie the game up 1-1, ending the 1st.
The 2nd period brought us a trio of goals, two by the Falcons, one by the Blugolds. Alex Hantge opened it up quickly on the powerplay, only taking 3:28 to go up 2-1. It was quite quiet scoring wise the remainder of the period, but we saw some quick action in the last three minutes of the period.
Eden Gruber tied it up once again for Eau Claire, which like back in the 1st period, this time quicker, Megan Goodreau put River Falls back on top, giving them the 3-2 lead headed into the final frame.
Goaltending was stellar for both sides, the bigger surprise coming from Eau Claire, not to say she wasn’t expected to perform well, but freshman Alexa Backmann had her biggest task yet of her young career facing the rival River Falls, not to mention they have the top offense and statistical leaders in the country… She made 33 saves in the game.
Once we got to the 3rd, we stayed even most of the period, but just past the midway mark we saw Sadie Long tie it up which held until overtime, a familiar place for these two.
Once we hit overtime, we could see the 3v3 play was in favor of River Falls, controlling most of the play, Backmann for Eau Claire made save-after-save, but eventually Megan Goodreau ended it at 2:53 of overtime, keeping River Falls unbeaten, a perfect 24-0-0.
Augsburg sweeps #15 Hamline
Augsburg entered the weekend already hot, winning 10 of their last 12 games, including wins over St. Norbert & #2 Gustavus.
The Auggies met with Hamline, who’s had an impressive season, the best of Head Coach Whitney Colbert’s early tenure, starting 16-5-0 before the weekend, they were 16-3-0 before getting swept by #2 Gustavus.
Augsburg swept the Pipers on the weekend, winning 4-2 in game one which featured a shorthanded goal as well. Emily Cronkhite was the star of game one, scoring the first two Auggie goals, including the SH goal.
The game went to the 3rd period tied 2-2, but Augsburg scored a pair, one in the first minute (1:05) by Tenley Stewart, then Claire Jenkins Coffman scored the dagger at 11:05 of the 3rd, Auggies took game one 4-2.
Both goaltenders made 27 saves apiece.
Game two featured less goals, the Auggies scoring both of theirs on the powerplay, Kennedy Stein scoring the first goal at 12:26 of the 1st, then we had to wait until the 3rd period for another goal, this time again by the Auggies on the powerplay by Nora Stepan, the eventual game-winner.
The Pipers added one to cut the lead in half, but it was too late, Abigail Chamernick added the goal just past the midway mark at 12:27.
Augsburg takes game two 2-1.
Chloe Stockinger made 33 saves in the victory to go along with her 27 on Friday.
Tournament Outlook
With conference playoffs for some beginning this weekend, some playing their final regular season games this weekend, we’ll take a peek at the current pairwise selections and tournament teams from the west.
Auto-Bids
Barring any upsets, here’s the auto bids we’ll see from the west with their respective Pairwise rank:
MIAC: Gustavus #4
NCHA: Adrian #5
Barring any upsets, here’s the at-large bids we’ll see from the west:
WIAC: UW-River Falls #1
WIAC: UW-Eau Claire #8
Looking at the pairwise, we see Adrian at 23-2-0 behind Plattsburgh (20-2-1), Amherst (18-2-2), & Gustavus (18-4-0), they’ll be a catalyst in the situation. Assuming River Falls takes the top seed, Gustavus and River Falls will unfortunately have to face off in the quarterfinals, while Adrian will likely play the western-most remaining team from the east. If Adrian can make a final four appearance with UWRF/Gustavus, we can all but ensure a west final four as we hear there’s west-preference every year, but don’t see it.
Another aspect we can see is if Eau Claire (19-5-0) can hang on and steal an at-large spot as they trail behind Middlebury and Hamilton with records of 12-6-3 & 13-4-5, since after their win vs Northland, they fell in pairwise due to Northland’s current record, the Blugolds would’ve been better off playing 24 games without this Northland game (no offense to the Jills, it’s just a fact at this current moment in time), sample size matters. This also comes into play with Adrian, some of their conference teams actually hinder their pairwise when they win.
An interesting aspect of pairwise that continues to hinder the west on various fronts, in which we will continue to see it get worse as more leagues begin. When 1-2 leagues are added, we may not see a WIAC team in the tournament unless River Falls or Eau Claire (unless the others in the WIAC improve quite briskly) lose no more than 1-3 games. Meanwhile out east, just win 15 games and you’ll be in the running, obviously you’re by far the best, so it makes sense to you if you’re east of Michigan.
We must resolve this issue as we continue to tout the west and claim to be growing the game, meanwhile we’re hindering it by essentially telling some teams your season is irrelevant after mid-November because you lost two-three games so you better win out and pray.
I understand some conferences are better than others, and in no way does this mean I think some teams cannot beat anyone in the country, but with current budgets and mileage limits, why should we expect Gustavus, Hamline, River Falls, Eau Claire, St. Norbert & others to fly cross-country for all non-conference games just for a chance at playing east teams for their pairwise, when the NCAA themselves are too cheap to send a team over 600 miles (originally 500) to play a tournament game… I’m sorry, regular-season games should matter and we cannot continue to avoid fixing this issue based on the truth that it’ll take a lot of thinking and work to fix.
But hey, I’m just an observer… what do I know?
