(Photo: Nick Badders/WCSN)
After beating Colorado State and Utah in the opening rounds of the Western Women’s Collegiate Hockey League playoffs, the Arizona State Women’s Hockey team will play in the conference’s championship game for the first time in program history.
With 4-1 and 3-1 wins under their belts, the No. 12 Sun Devils (17-4-0) will face off with the No. 11 University of Colorado Buffaloes (18-7-0) for the WWCHL crown and an automatic bid to the ACHA national tournament in Dallas at the end of March.
Of the seven goals scored over the first two days of the conference tournament, two each have come from freshman forwards Karlie Chadwick and Andi Main. Chadwick scored the third goal Friday against CSU and the game-tying goal Saturday against Utah, bringing her season total to five. Main logged empty netters in the final seconds of each game, while also tallying two assists against Utah to up her season point total to 21 — good for third most on the Sun Devils.
In both games, however, the Sun Devils got off to slow starts, including two scoreless first periods.
“We’ve been caught on some of our own chances, we’ve been getting trapped in the neutral zone, we’ve been passive on the attack,” senior goaltender Jordan Nash-Boulden said after Saturday’s win over Utah. “From my perspective, it always helps if we get the offense going early…You always want to play from ahead, not from behind so I think if we get out there and make a big impact early and set them on their heels, then we can get to work on the defense, we can take care of it and close it out.”
Historically, ASU has not had a great deal of success against CU. Colorado leads the all-time series 9-0-0 and has outscored ASU 45-12. This season, the Sun Devils dropped both games to the Buffs in Tempe, 2-1 in overtime and 3-0.
That 2-1 loss is their closest margin ever against the Buffaloes, ahead of the 3-1 defeat ASU suffered last year in the opening game of the WWCHL playoffs in Las Vegas.
This season marks CU’s third straight regular season title and fifth straight trip to the conference championship game, though they have only won it once — in 2018 over Minnesota in Fremont, Nebraska. Last season, the Buffs fell to Midland, 3-2 in double overtime in Las Vegas. In 2017, they lost to Minnesota 2-1 in Tempe and in 2016, they lost to Lindenwood-Belleville 2-1 in Boulder.
This year’s Colorado team is not as strong as that of years past. They lost the likes of Kathleen Ash and Leah MacArthur, two of the ACHA’s top scorers before they graduated from the program. They also suffered a loss at the hands of GCU in early February, 3-1 at AZ Ice Arcadia.
ASU enters vastly improved from last season, with some of the country’s top players. Sophomore forward and team captain Kat Jones sits 19th in the nation with 30 points, tied for fifth with 19 goals. Nash-Boulden is third among goalies in save percentage at .949 and 10th in goals against average, 1.77.
For seniors Nash-Boulden and Molly Potter, Sunday’s clash with the Buffaloes represents perhaps their final chance to suit up for the maroon and gold, but also an opportunity that has been brewing since the beginning of the season.
“I think we have the right group of girls in the locker room to make that push and take it all the way and we’ve known that since the beginning of the season, that’s always been the goal,” Nash-Boulden said. “I don’t think there’s enough I can say about how special it would be to hold that trophy with this group of girls, in front of my family and friends and put a good cap on my career.”
Previously, the furthest ASU had gone into the conference tournament was the semifinal game last year against Midland, which they lost 3-0 in Las Vegas. While this is uncharted territory for the Sun Devils, they are backed by veteran leaders and a strong core of underclassmen that have contributed heavily to the stat sheet. They’ll face a storied Colorado team looking to make its way back to the national tournament after a down season.
“We’ve seen other teams that are a little less favored put up a hell of a fight against us,” Potter said. “Going into this game with Colorado, our only focus is what we can do. It doesn’t matter what they can do. It’s what we can do to beat them and make it to the national tournament.”
