Women's Hockey Gears Up For Playoff Run

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Posted: Wednesday, February 27, 2008

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. - The UW-Eau Claire women's hockey is done with regular season competition and is scheduled to play Lake Forest College (Ill.) in the first round of the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) playoffs on Friday at 7:00 p.m. in Superior, Wisconsin.

The Blugolds are 2-1 in their three meetings with Lake College this season. The Blugolds won the first and final regular season meetings between the teams this season. The first win came on December 8, 2007 at Hobbs Ice Center by a score of 4-2 and the second came on the road at Lake College when the Blugolds beat the Foresters 5-2 on February 9, 2008. Sandwiched between the Blugolds' two victories was a 2-3 defeat on February 8, 2008 at Lake College.

The Blugolds finished the regular season with an overall record of 12-13-0 and 9-9-0 in NCHA play. Their 9-9-0 record in conference play resulted in a fourth place finish in the Conference. The Foresters finished the regular season with an overall record of 11-10-4 and 7-8-3 in conference play. The Foresters' conference record landed them in fifth place.

The Blugolds are looking for only their second ever victory in NCHA playoff competition. In order to record that victory the Blugolds are going to need great efforts by all their players, but Kristin Faber (Fr.-Austin, MN) will have to step up in particular. Faber is the Blugolds' leading scorer with 22 points on 13 goals and nine assists. Faber has not been the only Blugold who has hand luck finding the back of the net; Margaret Campbell (Jr.-Plymouth, MN/Wayzata) has had a great season as well netting 16 points off seven goals and nine assists. Campbell's 16 points is the second highest total on the team. In addition to Campbell and Faber, the Blugolds have four other skaters with double digit point totals this season that the team looks for to generate offense this weekend. Christine Dickinson (Fr.-Layton, UT/Shattuck St. Mary's) with 15 points, Beth Dittrich (So.-Roseville, MN) with 14 points, Michelle Stohr (So.-South St. Paul, MN) with 11 points, and Lauren Havard (Jr.-San Angelo, TX/Arapahoe) with 11 points are all key pieces to the Blugolds success this weekend.

The Blugolds will have two options in goal this weekend with Danika Porter (Fr.-Rosemount, MN/South St. Paul) and Lindsay Savat (Fr.- Apple Valley, MN/Thomas Jefferson) having split the playing time this season. Savat started most of the Blugolds' games down the stretch and ended up with a record of 5-6-0 on the season with a goals against average of 2.47 and a saves percentage of .892. Porter recorded the win in the Blugolds regular season finale at River Falls and finished the season with a record of 7-6-0 with a goals against average of 1.97 and a saves percentage of .905.

The Foresters enter this weekend's playoff matchup fresh off a weekend sweep of Concordia University (Wis.). In the Foresters final game of the season, their top three scorers lit the lamp. They will hope to see more the same this weekend from the scoring trio of Courtney DeHoey, Kerry Gotowka, and Laura Wilson. Dehoey leads the trio with 13 goals while Gotowka has 12 and Wilson has 10. Dehoey has 11 assists to go along with her 13 goals for a team leading 24 points.

In net, the Foresters have split playing time between Ryann McCarthy and Alyssa Wintermute. McCarthy finished the regular season with a record of 4-6-4 and a goals against average of 2.49 along with a saves percentage of .909. Wintermute posted a record of 7-4-0 with a goals against average of 2.64 and a save percentage of .905.

The puck is set to drop on this NCHA playoff matchup at 7:00 p.m. on Friday night in Superior, Wisconsin. The winner will go on to play either UW-Superior or UW-Stevens Point on Saturday afternoon.

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