Photo by Photoworks The 2022-23 Marshall girls hockey team included Lily Verkinderen, Jenae Davis, Avery Kesteloot, Mia Wichmann, Madyson Girard, Kendal Beernaert, Kalyn DeVlieger, Elizabeth Garvey, Brooklyn Mauch, Regan Loft, Kayta Waltz, Eliza Holmgren, Olivia DeGroot, Ava Kolander, Abigail Foley, Abigail Guggisberg, Olivia Penske, Lily Stelter, Belle Deutz and Paige Christianson. The team was coached by Cassi Weiss with assistant coaches Chris Foley, Dave Coudert and Derek Smith.

MARSHALL — The Marshall girls hockey team finished its 2022-23 season strong after a tumultuous start. With only three seniors on the team, the Tigers weren’t heavy on experience. Yet, through the leadership of the team’s upperclassmen and the underclassmen’s ability to rise to the occasion, Marshall proved itself to be a team to watch going forward.

“We still had a lot of young girls and we lost a few seniors, so I guess we didn’t know what to expect in that aspect, but I think we were pretty confident,” Marshall senior forward Kalyn DeVlieger said.

The Tigers lost six of their first seven games. Half of those six losses came by three or more goals. Still, the Tigers didn’t hang their heads.

“We knew we played some really high-competition teams in the beginning of the season. We were all aware of that, but we knew that from those hard games, we were going to be able to get better and improve,” said Regan Loft, a senior forward for the Tigers who finished the season with 10 goals and a first-team All-Big South nod.

From there, the Tigers’ outlook began to improve. Marshall went on an eight-game point streak starting on Dec. 28 that helped the Tigers finish the season in third place in the Big South Conference with 19 points, a 5-point improvement from the previous season.

Part of the key for the Tigers’ breakout was the emergence of eighth-grader Brooklyn Mauch as one of the team’s primary goal scorers. Mauch scored her third goal of the season in the Tigers’ 3-2 win over River Lakes that kicked off their point streak. From there, she scored 10 goals during the eight-game stretch and finished the season with a total of 18 to go along with seven assists.

Still, much of Mauch’s success wouldn’t have been possible without the maturity of the seniors.

“The older girls have really embraced her being our goal-scorer,” Marshall head coach Cassi Weiss said. “That kind of gave her the confidence to just kind of take it and run.”

As the season approached the final stretch, the Tigers looked like a whole new team. After losing 3-1 against Minnesota River in January, Marshall won the rematch on the road in a 5-1 blowout. The win kept the Bulldogs at bay in the standings and helped the Tigers finish the regular season on a three-game win streak in conference play.

As strong as the Tigers looked at the end of the regular season, they perhaps looked even stronger after the sectional quarterfinals. The Tigers dominated their first-round matchup against Worthington to the tune of a 17-1 win. Mauch, Loft and Eliza Holmgren each scored a hat trick in the game while Lily Verkinderen, Kendal Beernaert and Abbey Foley each chipped in another two.

Foley, a freshman, finished the season tied with Loft as the team’s second-leading goal scorers with 10 goals each. Her 12 assists on the season were also one shy of DeVlieger for a team-high.

The Tigers were riding high heading into their 3A semifinal matchup against New Ulm. They hadn’t gotten a win over the Eagles yet, but Marshall’s 2-1 loss on Dec. 1 and 0-0 tie on Jan. 5 were in the past. This was a different team.

“It’s going to be about making sure we get quality shots, get them on net, and clean up rebounds. We’re the type of team that just gets greasy, dirty goals, you know, awful rebounds and stuff like that,” assistant coach Dave Coudert said about the New Ulm matchup after the Tigers’ quarterfinal win. “I don’t think New Ulm was seeing our best and hopefully they see it [in the semifinals].”

If New Ulm hadn’t seen the Tigers’ best before, they certainly saw it in the playoffs. At the end of regulation, the score was tied 0-0, sending the game into a sudden-death overtime period. The teams went through another two scoreless periods before New Ulm landed the knockout blow three minutes into the third overtime.

In a game that neither team deserved to lose, Marshall got the short end of the stick. Yet, the loss didn’t spoil the Tigers’ season.

“With the three overtime game, you can’t get any better than that. Everybody left it all on the ice,” Marshall senior Kayta Waltz said. “Going into next season, it’s going to ignite a fire in everybody that they want to keep winning, especially after leaving after three overtimes, so leaving after a game like that will really kick off next season.”