Story by Alex Rodriguez, Sports Columnist
Throughout the end of fall semester 2023 and going into spring 2024, the Aquinas Men’s Hockey team was skating around opponents putting them at a current record of 13-13. This includes 17 games within our conference and another 9 outside. The Men’s Hockey Team although not holding a fantastic record has shown quite promise through the season, however. This was shown through a solid 10-7 record within the conference and big wins such as one against #19 U of M-Dearborn.
Starting out this season, the Men’s Hockey Team played up against mostly teams outside of the WHAC conference; this included teams such as Roosevelt, Davenport , and Calvin. With a couple wins against those teams, they win into conference games. Our Saints started out melting the ice burning Rochester by a score of 5-2 in back to back games. However, they cooled off after playing #12 Indiana Tech, #16 U of M-Dearborn, and Lawrence Tech facing a few tough losses. They didn’t let it stay that way moving forward into the conference games winning the next 8 games. Beating Concordia 4-3 and 5-3, then taking down Cleary 5-3 and 7-3, along with Rochester again, beating them 6-2 and 8-2. Winning the last 6 conference games of the year, they continued it out by beating #19 U of M-Dearborn in back to back games.
Getting deeper into the recent wins against #19 Dearborn these two games were hard fought in each game. Within the first match up, our Saints managed to slide into an early lead that although nice didn’t last for long. By the end of the second period they were down 3-2, but the fight was far from over. Going into the third period, the lead Dearborn held slipped away as our Saints buried 3 goals to win by a landslide of 6-2. Going into their next game, however, Dearborn was not making it easy for the Saints. With a silent first period and second period, Dearborn fired a shot leaving the score 1-0, Saints down. Starting the third period though, the Saints ended the lead tying the game 1-1. The last period consisted of two more goals leaving the score 2-2 going into the shootout. In the end, Aquinas landed another victory with a game winning shootout goal to beat #19 U of M-Dearborn for the second time this year.
With the WHAC tournament coming up, it will be exciting to see how these Saints compete within the conference when it matters most!
The Saint 