St. Norbert Reaches NCHA O'Brien Cup Playoffs in Inaugural Season

From Sports Information Director, February 12, 2011 | Women's Hockey
by Dan Lukes, dan.lukes@snc.edu, (920) 403-4077

GREEN BAY - St. Norbert College, despite fielding a team entirely of freshmen in its first season, qualified for the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association O'Brien Cup Playoffs by defeating the College of St. Scholastica 2-1 at Resch Olympic Pavilion.

The Green Knights won their fourth-straight game to improve to 11-9-3 overall and 8-7-3 in the NCHA. St. Norbert currently has 19 points in the NCHA to sit in seventh place, and mathematically still could finish as high as fourth. St. Scholastica fell to 7-15-1, 5-12-1.

St. Norbert scored the key first goal of the game at the 11 minute 44 second mark of the first period. Kelley Ritchie scored her second goal of the year with assists from Karissa Anderson and Andrea Senne. The Green Knights are now 10-2-1 on the year when scoring first.

St. Scholastica tied the score early in the second period when Kiana Leisz scored unassisted at 3:37. The Green Knights needed just over two minutes to counter, when Lauren Straus buried a power-play goal off an assist from Henriette Ostergaard at 5:47. The goal is Straus' fourth game-winning goal of the year.

St. Norbert's defense held up the rest of the way, as the Green Knights have now allowed just two goals in their last five games. Kaley Gibson made 22 saves for the Green Knights. Rachel Borchardt made 29 stops for the Saints.

St. Norbert was 1-for-7 on the power play, while St. Scholastica was 0-for-7.