The UW-Eau Claire women’s hockey team ended their season against the top-ranked UW-River Falls Falcons 4-1 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) final match.
The Falcons took the first goal nine minutes into the game before first-year forward Jana Lesch answered with 4:15 left on the clock, going into the second period with a tie 1-1.
The Falcons took two goals in the last 11 minutes of the second period to pull away into a 3-1 lead after entering power-play. The final goal of the game was scored with 13:13 left in the game, leaving the final total at 4-1.
Head Coach Erik Strand is in his 10th year coaching the UW-Eau Claire women’s hockey team. He has won WIAC coach of the year four times in a row. He’s brought the Blugolds to the O’Brien Cup final game nine consecutive times.
“We wanted to be a lot harder on the puck,” Coach Strand said. “Push the pace and really take away time and space. Really limit as many mistakes as we could make and I’m really happy with how we played and responded today.”
This year’s victory marks UW-River Falls’ sixth win of the O’Brien Cup in a row and their 10th in overall team history.
On the other side, Assistant Coach Erin Connolly is in her first season as an assistant coach after serving her first three seasons as goalie coach.
“Obviously we’re going up against a very good opponent,” Connolly said. “We have a ton of respect for the guys over on the other side.”
Third-year forward Sam Moehle said she’s proud of how the team works together, using their grit and sticking to their game plan.
“We have to play our game,” Moehle said. “There are parts where we fall a little bit, but we realise, get back to it and then that’s how we find our successes when we play our game.“
Second-year goalie Alexa Backmann is a part of the three goalie line-up this year. She made 20 in-net saves for UW-Eau Claire, helping shut down the Falcons in the third period of the game.
“They lost a lot of seniors last year — their top players — but I’ll tell you the freshmen that they brought in have been a great addition,” Alexa Backmann’s father Bill said. “I think they’ll be very strong in the next four years, and everybody is playing the part they should be.”
This year, the team is losing five players, and among them is fourth-year Quinn Hartmetz.
Hartmetz said her favorite part of being on the team was “making memories with everyone, being at the rink every day in the locker room in the bus and making friendships that will last.”
Every season, the team has a get-together in order to introduce the freshmen to the team. Moehle said getting to know everybody on the team is her favorite thing off of the ice.
“You look at our scoring and where that’s coming from is we’re a really young team,” Coach Strand said. “It’s really early to think about next year, but we’ve got a good core coming back.”
The 30-person lineup boasts 16 underclassmen. First-years make up a third of the team. Sean Swanson is first-year goalie Teagan Swanson’s father. He said the team is a great group of people for his daughter.
“The staff is awesome, everyone is friendly,” Sean Swanson said. “You couldn’t ask for a better experience coming into college.”
The coaches said team chemistry is important, and some of the parents said the end of the season has shown the team gelling together.
“It’s a very close-knit group,” Connolly said. “They care a lot about each other and they pick each other up. Coming together as a team is what leads you to success.”
Strand said he expects the team next year to have a chance at repeating.
“They’re just selfless,” Strand said. “They compete all the way to the end, and they’re just great people. They did everything they needed to do, and we can walk out of here with our heads held high.”
UW-Eau Claire women’s hockey’s next season will start in November 2025.
Pawlisch can be reached at pawliswj0471@uwec.edu.
