Sports
Photo courtesy of athletics.uwsp.edu
The Pointers celebrate against the University of St. Thomas this past weekend.
Women’s hockey looks to exceed conference expectations
The Pointer
Hshee298@uwsp.edu
The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point women’s hockey team stormed into their season with a win against the University of St. Thomas this past weekend. In their 5-3 win in St. Paul, Minn., the girls proved just what the team’s intentions are for this season: to play strong and win.
According to head coach Ann Ninnemann, the team’s strength for this season is their ability to work hard.
“They’ve all been working really hard to condition on and off the ice to develop their skills,” Ninnemann said. “As long as they keep this up, I believe we can be successful.”
To prepare for the 2009 season the team relied on the responsibility of each individual to stay in shape.
“We do a lot of interval training and the girls usually skate twice a week,” said Ninnemann. “Most of the initiative though, is on their shoulders to stay in shape.”
Apart from meeting on the ice, the girls also had the opportunity to participate in a strength training schedule at the UWSP Strength Center. For each offseason, a Strength Center employee calculates proper workouts for the team to do and it is up to the athlete to keep current with the training schedule.
After losing a significant portion of their offense, including their two All-American players Rachael Graves and Nicole Grossman as well as three other scorers, the team was feeling some pressure.
What doesn’t help is the fact that a great majority of Wisconsin high schools do not have an active women’s hockey program to recruit from. This is why most of the team is from Minnesota, where there are over 100 high schools that have women’s hockey.
With these factors tabulated, the conference preseason poll pegged the team to wind up in fourth place.
Ninnemann couldn’t disagree more and expressed her confidence in the team.
“I don’t feel that at the end of the year we’ll be in fourth position but that’s where others view us because of who we lost,” Ninnemann said. “They however, don’t know who we have coming in. I’m really looking forward to this season.”
Key returners include junior Dana Carothers, one of the most proven scorers on the team and sophomore forward Erin Marvin. Defensively, according to Ninnemann, “Sarah Phillips is running our defense this year.” More notable players include senior team captains Jessica Edward and Tracy Butler.
The team has also added new freshman to the roster. Uniting together and teaching the newer players the system is what Ninnemann sees as the biggest challenge of the season, but not one they can’t handle.
The Pointers have a total of 12 home games during the season; the next one is this Sunday, Nov. 8, at 2:30 p.m. when they take on Concordia-Moorhead. For a full schedule visit http://athletics.uwsp.edu/schedule.aspx?path=whockey&.
