2014-2015 St. Louis Park Girl's Hockey Team

Last year, the Orioles posted a 4-20-1 regular season record, were seeded ninth in Section 5A and lost their opening sectional game to Holy Angels 3-2.  This year could be different for the 15 Park skaters and lone goalie that comprise the Orioles' team.  They won their 2014-2015 opener beating the St. Paul Blades 7-4 last weekend and with Tuesday's win over Sibley are 2-0 on the season. They will be favored to win more then .500 of the rest of their games this season, but still have to get by defending Class A state tourney champs, Blake, and one of the strongest girls hockey team in the state, Breck, just to take the trip to the Xcel.  But they will be exciting, and will get better.  In two or three years they should be worrying about hotel reservations in downtown St. Paul.

 Junior Elena Basill led the Orioles in their win over the Blades posting 6 points/3 goals in the opener.  As a sophomore, Basill was the Orioles #2 scorer last season posting 24 points/12 goals for St. Louis Park.  Park has lost four of their five top scores through graduation, but the Orioles have strength in returning senior forwards Maris Cunningham and Eva Rose and junior Alexis Baker.  The Park offense gets younger after that with seventh grader Olivia Mobley centering the Orioles starting line.  The Orioles have some talented sophomore players in returning Makayla Jones-Klausing, and Kathryn Evans.  The sophomores are joined by ninth graders Kate Frederickson and eighth grader Mary Gleason.  Mobley was an outstanding player for the Park’s peewee A team last season.

Senior Sophia Noreen leads a veteran defensive corps that includes seniors Samantha Jermusek, Hatalie Vig; junior Brigid Duffy; and sophomore Alissa Meredith.  The veteran defensive corps plays in front of sophomore goalie Anna Gleason.  St. Louis Park is a Class A team that plays in the new Metro West Conference (along with Class AA teams Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Chanhassen/Chaska, and Jefferson/Kennedy).

The Orioles will return to Section 5 for the Class A State Tourney playoffs.  The returning Section 5A champion is Blake.  In section play last year, Blake beat Holy Angels and Mound Westonka to get to the championship game edging Breck 6-4 and went on to win the Class A State Tourney beating East Grand Forks 3-2.  But St. Louis Park will also face Breck in Section 5 play; based on Breck's dominating 4-0 win over Class AA Benilde-St. Margaret's Tuesday night (game story to be posted on this site later), Breck could be the best girls hockey team in the state for the 2014-2015 season.

2014-2015 Henry Sibley Girls Hockey Team

At times last season, half of the Sibley players on the ice were sisters.  Senior Lily, ninth grader Abbie, and junior Julie Wetzel-Edstrom all played for the Sibley varsity in 2013-2014.  Lily played forward, Abbie played defense, and Julie played goalie.  That should happen this year (but not Tuesday night, Lily didn’t suit up) especially with Sibley’s top two scorers graduating.  Junior defenseman Demi Cooper (Sibley’s #2 scorer with 25 points/11 goals in 25 regular season games) returns; but the offense will fall to Lily Wetzel-Edstrom and juniors Ashley Halpin, Ashley Linarte, Lizzy Johnson, and Jessica Affolter.

Joining Cooper and Abbie Wetzel-Edstrom at defense will be junior Maddie Kemp and veterans Morgan Marrin, and Ann Restemeyer (did not suit up Tuesday).  Both Sibley goalies return.  Junior Julia Wetzel-Edstrom posted a 3-18-0 record giving up 4.2 goals per game while stopping 87% of the shots on goal; senior Patti Fischbach posted a 0-4 record giving up 5.6 goals per game while stopping 83% of the shots on net.

Sibley plays in the new Metro East conference that is last season’s Classic suburban Conference.  Hill-Murray won the conference posting a perfect 12-0 record.  South St. Paul took second place.  Hastings’ girls team joins the Metro East this season.  In Section 4A last February, Sibley lost in quarterfinal play to Achiever Academy.  Achiever Academy later forfeited all their Section 4A wins.  Tuesday’s season opener against St. Louis Park was played at, soon to be remodeled, Sibley Arena.

Game Summary

Sibley had a rough opening first period.  They drew six penalties resulting in skating shorthanded for 8 of the 17 minute period.  Still the Warriors managed to kill all the penalties and get a 1-1 tie at the end of the period.  Just under six minutes into the opening period, Park’s Cunningham scored with assists to Basill and Meredith.  The Warriors Demi Cooper scored to tie the game ninety seconds later with Kayla Lucken getting the assist.

The second period quieted down.  There was only one penalty called.  Sibley drew a holding penalty.  The Warriors’ Laura Friedmann scored to put Sibley up 2-1 halfway through the second period.  Cooper got the assist and the Warriors led going into the second period 2-1.  But at the end of the second period, the Warrior defense started to tire.  St. Louis Park was starting to pressure Sibley for long periods in the last minutes of the second period.

Thirty-two seconds into the third period, Sibley pulled a roughing penalty.  It was the Warriors only penalty of the final period and it cost them.  Park set up play in the Warriors’ zone and moved the puck to the right faceoff.  The Orioles’ Sophia Noreen came up with the puck off the boards, took a stride towards the net and shot.  Elena Basill screening in the right faceoff tipped the puck changing the trajectory from right to left side of the net beating goalie Patti Fischbach on the upper left side.  Basill got the goal; Noreen got the assist.  The game was tied 2-2.  Park continued to apply pressure to the Warriors keeping most of the play on Sibley’s side of the ice.

At the 10 minute mark, the Orioles scored again.  A long lead pass by Sibley resulted in defenseman Loreen picking up the puck in the slot in front of the Orioles’ net.  Loreen beat the breaking forwards at her blue line and beat the Sibley defense crossing the Warriors’ blue line going center right.  She cut to the right slot and fired point blank on Fischbach.  Fischbach slowed the puck, but it found a path and ended up in the upper left side of the net.  Loreen’s unassisted goal put Park up 3-2.  Three minutes later, Noreen would score the game winner.

Park had beat the Warriors’ defense and had the puck deep in the Warriors’ zone left.  Cunningham came up with a pass that bounced the boards to Noreen at the left point.  Noreen let a quick hard shot go that skimmed the ice beating Sibley’s goalie to the far left post for the game winner.  Cunningham got the assist.  Sibley came back to cut Park’s lead to 4-3 on a goal by Ashley Halpin with just under three minutes left in the game.  After working hard to control the puck behind the Park net, Ashley Linarte found Halpin in the low right faceoff for the score.  Linarte got the assist.

Sibley had two chances to tie the game late in the third period, but couldn’t connect.  Park won 4-3.

What is next?

St. Louis Park plays eight Metro West games this year.  The Orioles will play the first game in their new conference this Saturday when they host Holy Angels.  The Stars open their season with a non-conference game with the St. Paul Blades tonight at Phalen Arena.

After playing the Stars, St. Louis Park goes on to play fourteen non-conference games with one more game with Holy Angels (December 20th) stuck in.  The Orioles do not get back to Metro West play until January 13th when they play Chanhassen/Chaska at home in the first of six straight conference games to end their season.

The Orioles have talent, especially offensively, but still haven’t solved the passing game.  A number of scoring opportunities were lost when the forwards had their heads down or choose to solo after initially beating the defense.  Defensively, St. Louis Park gave up the weak side too easily forcing their goalie Anna Gleason to react sometimes awkwardly to “side to side” puck movement.  Gleason stopped 20 of 23 shots on net.  They will be a fun team to watch this season.   

Sibley will play eleven Metro East games this season (Hill-Murray, Hastings, and South St. Paul once; Tartan, North St. Paul, Mahtomedi, and Simley twice).  The Warriors game with St. Louis Park was the first of seven non-conference games Sibley will play to open their season.  In the next two weeks the Warriors will be on the road playing at St. Peter. at Northfield, and at St. Paul Blades (in a rivalry game at Phalen Arena) before returning home to play Eveleth-Gilbert.

The Warriors offense plays a good team concept but they are slow in their decision making.  Considering it was their first game of the season, that “rust” is likely to disappear.  Their defense tired as the game wore on and the Orioles offensive power was enough to beat the Warriors defense at the Sibley blue line creating 2-on-1 or 2-on-0 rushes on Sibley’s goaltender, Patti Fischbach.  That rust too should disappear.  Fischbach stopped 24 of 28 shots on net.