Saints Women’s Hockey Looking to Continue Success into Final Season in NCHA

St. Scholastica will have a new goaltender in net, but senior Lori Huseby comes into the season with 26 collegiate games under her belt and a .936 saves percentage.

DULUTH, Minn. – It’s finally game week for the St. Scholastica women’s hockey team.

The Saints have plenty of scoring returning this season and have their largest roster size in program history, but they will  have a new face in net. The Saints graduated standout Lexi Thomeczek in the spring but have a pretty solid backup: senior Lori Huseby will move into that starter role.

Huseby has played in 26 games, has a 1.63 goals against average and a .936 saves percentage. Although she hasn’t seen tons of playing time, she learned a lot from watching Thomeczek and is ready for a new role.

“We both pushed ourselves so hard and learning from her, I really learned this summer that I need to be a little bit quicker and be able use my size that I do have,” Huseby said.

“Lori’s been very statistically good for us as well, she just obviously happened to have a partner that was very, very good and I think Lori has the capability to be just as good, it’s now her time to shine,” head coach Jackie MacMillan said.

In their last year in the NCHA, Huseby and the Saints will look to continue their recent success, as they made it to the NCHA Slaats Cup championship the past two seasons.

“It is our last year in this conference so we kind of want to come home with that win too so we’re really excited,” junior forward Mariah Haedrich said.

“Just showing that it wasn’t just a fluke the past two years and not only are we deserving of that championship but we’re going to be leaving a mark,” Huseby added.

We’re a top team in the conference and we have high expectations for this group, no different than it’s been the past few years. So with the experiences that they’ve had the past couple of seasons, they’ve got a little bit of an attitude going into this season expecting to do different things,” MacMillan said.

The Saints are scheduled to open the season on Friday at Augsburg then host the Auggies on Saturday.