Fighting against the chill of Martin Ice Arena, fans piled into the stands on Saturday, Feb. 5, to honor the seven seniors of the Central Michigan women’s club hockey team.
With hand-crafted signs lining the boards near the home team’s bench, each of the seniors took the ice with their parents and was announced to the crowd, before receiving a bouquet.
“It made me feel sad actually because a lot of those girls are a lot of my close friends,” sophomore forward Emily Kostielney said. “And I always think about how they were feeling at that moment. That's like their last time possibly on the ice for the rest of their lives. So it was it's kind of saddening, but I like to have the honor because they deserve it.”
However, the bright lights and attention may have hurt the Chippewas as they lost 8-0 in the first game of a two-game series against Notre Dame. CMU is now 4-13 on the year.
“I think that coming off of you know, break, and then having that one game against Bowling Green kind of got, in my opinion, maybe a little bit too cocky,” Captain Mac Barnett said. “And we're like, 'oh, yeah, like let's go.' We're super confident. Let's play like our game-type of thing. But we weren't playing as a cohesive team, playing very individually.”
After securing the opening face-off, both teams struggled to find their rhythm on offense, resulting in a 0-0 tie through the first eight minutes.
The Fighting Irish kept peppering freshman goalie Lauren Abraham with shots, as CMU failed to clear the puck. Notre Dame’s Adison Steinke capitalized on a failed clearance and beat Abraham stick-side to take a 1-0 lead halfway through the first period.
“If we start strong, we take the momentum of the game, right from the drop of the puck, we tend to play pretty well, pretty strong no matter what the score is,” Kostielney said. “But if the other team takes momentum and they get a goal. It's like we almost want to give up and don't even try to care to try to win again. We just got to keep the momentum going no matter how the game goes. We can't feel defeated.”
A tripping penalty on CMU senior forward Ashley Neuenfeldt forced the Chippewas down to four players.
Although it took a minute and a half, the Fighting Irish made CMU pay for the infraction and pushed the score to 2-0 with a close-range goal at 5:23 remaining in the period.
With the Chippewas reeling, Notre Dame exited the first intermission hungry to increase the score. As the buzzer sounded on the second period, the Fighting Irish exploited holes in CMU’s defense and extended their lead to four off of point-blank shots.
“It's something our coaches talk to us about where you know, that was our biggest flaw of the game,” Barnett said. “And that's what gave them so many opportunities. They scored pretty much all of them in the house, as we call it, so in the very front of the net and right near the net.”
Instead of calling off the dogs, Notre Dame poured it on in the third. After notching their fifth goal of the game three minutes into the period, the Fighting Irish added three more to secure an 8-0 victory.
Even though Abraham was replaced by freshman Briana Schorer partway through the third, Kostielney believes things would’ve been worse with a different crew in the net.
“They're marvelous,” Kostielney said. “Honestly, they're some of the best ones I've ever seen in my entire life. And they're exhausted after the games because I put so much work and they're like they're keeping us on it for sure. It would’ve been double digits if it weren't for them.”
After suffering an 8-0 defeat on senior night, the Chippewas opened up Sunday’s meeting against Notre Dame with something to prove.
“The biggest change we made was coming in more prepared in a way mentally, knowing that we didn't want to lose eight-nothing, especially because we played that game in front of all of our family and friends that were there for senior night,” Kostielney said. “I think that senior night also kind of threw the tone off a bit, too.”
The Fighting Irish dominated time of possession in game one, but CMU’s defense stood strong to slow Notre Dame in the rematch.
While the Chippewas found success attacking and sustaining possession, it didn’t result in a win as the Fighting Irish secured a 4-0 victory to sweep the season series.
“It's been about putting in effort and no matter what we think the outcome is gonna be,” Kostielney said. “We have to think positive and come out and try our best and just put the puck in the net is all it is. (Coach Haney) is like, 'I don't care what the score is, we just need to get a goal, we put the puck in the net,' (because) a lot of times we struggle with that.”
CMU hopes to improve its offensive presence heading into the final weekend of the season, as they welcome Northern Michigan University to Martin Ice Arena on Saturday, Feb. 19, at 8:30 p.m.
Currently, NMU sits at third in the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s Division II Central standings. Forward Chloe Valente leads the Wildcats and ACHA in points with 45, tying her for first in DII.
“Northern's very good, so we know they're going to come out strong,” Kostielney said. “They have a full roster. Some of us know some girls on that team. They're very skilled, that's for sure. And they gonna put up a fight and they're not going to give us any mercy, so we have to give that fight back. No matter what the score is, no matter how it starts. We got to keep our drive going.”