(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
It was a dominate performance from goaltender Jordan-Nash Boulden who saved 52 of the 54 shots faced in Saturday’s 3-2 win over rivals Grand Canyon.
“She’s just ridiculous, there’s nothing really else to say, she’s superhuman,” assistant coach Kaley Marino said after the game. “I can’t even cheer anymore; I just shake my head. She was great, she kept us in it, we’re lucky to have her.”
GCU pressured the Sun Devils in their own zone all night making Boulden have to make one incredible save after another.
The Lopes knew how much this game meant for them as their playoff hopes depended on a win at their home arena.
However, ASU was able to squeak out the victory thanks to a goal from freshman Taylor Northcott with 15 minutes remaining in the third period.
The Sun Devils didn’t take long to score their first goal either as sophomore Finn Larson put her team on the board just under two minutes into the opening period.
It wasn’t a perfect game for ASU either, as they were outshot 54 to 34 by the end of the game. Captain Kat Jones felt the overall performance of the team was not up to their standards.
“I think Jordan did amazing, the team, as a whole, we need to work on a lot of things,” Jones said. “I don’t think we played our best hockey it felt like the passion wasn’t there, like it was first semester. We really need to get that back before playoffs, that’s really important. We’re lucky that we pulled off the win, we’re lucky we have Jordan.”
The Sun Devils kept themselves out of the penalty box most of the night only committing just two infractions.
But there were mistakes in other places of the ice and Boulden certainly kept note of that.
“They certainly made us pay for our mistakes in the natural zone and in the offensive zone,” Nash-Boulden said. “At times we weren’t very clean getting out in our own end and they turned it right back around on us. But luckily, I caught a couple breaks and made some saves through some traffic, kind of kept it out of there.”
A power play goal by Jones in the second period gave ASU only their third power play goal in their last six games. It was also her 19th goal of the season, which leads the team.
This win also capped off the season sweep against GCU and it effectively eliminated them from playoff contention.
Beating their rival is always the goal for this program, but they want to do much more than that.
“It feels good, we talked about wanting separate ourselves from them,” Marino said. “They’re a great little team, they’re coached really well, but naturally we want to separate ourselves from them and be the nationally ranked team that we are.”
As the Sun Devils move on from the regular season, it’s now time to shift the focus to the WWCHL playoffs.
ASU will head into Utah as the No. 2 ranked team in the conference behind Colorado, who swept them at home in the end of January.
This means the team will face the No. 3 seed of Colorado State and No. 4 seed Utah in the playoffs.
As the switch flips to a more intense environment, coach Marino believes there’s one main thing the team needs to prepare for.
“It’s just mindset, we played great against these nation ranked teams on our away games and I think we just go to a different level when we play them, so we’re not really worried about meeting that level while we go to playoffs and play these better teams,” she said.
How the team gets into that playoff mindset will be the job of the coaches for the next few weeks.
If there’s one thing for certain, it’s that the team will rely heavily on their goaltender to perhaps carry them throughout the postseason as she did in this game.
“I’m really glad that we finished the season the way we did,” Jones said. “I’m really glad Jordan got that, she deserved it so much. I’m just so happy for her. So, it means a lot and it definitely means a lot to the team for Jordan.”
The playoffs begin Feb. 28 and will finish up that weekend on Mar. 1 in Utah where the Sun Devils look to possibly play for a national title.
