By Greg Monahan
For gvsuhockey.com

Published on: March 16, 2010       Comment      Email This Post      Print This Post

LAKERS INSIDER

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By Greg Monahan
GVL Staff Writer

In the biggest weekend of the season, the Grand Valley State University women’s hockey team faced off against teams they struggled against all season. Battling through two nail-biting games, the Lakers came up a goal short in each contest.

At the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s Division I women’s national championships in Blaine, MN, the Lakers went 1-2. They dropped two one-goal games to Michigan State University and top-ranked Lindenwood University, sandwiching the two close losses with a 5-0 domination of the University of Massachusetts.

The team entered Friday night facing a must-win against LU, a team they were 0-3 against entering the tournament. After falling behind by three goals early, the Lakers battled back to within one before time ran out.

“We’ve always struggled against Lindenwood, and we lost to them 5-4, but it was by far the best game we’ve played against them,” said junior co-captain Ashley Rumsey. “If we had one more period I really think we would have had that game. It was really intense and a great weekend for us, and I really liked the way we played.”

In their second national championships in just their third year as a program, the women improved on last year’s tenth overall finish, moving up to fifth in the nation this season. Head women’s hockey coach Cory Whitaker said his team took another step in the right direction.

“It’s fun to watch something like this team from the beginning, watching it grow and mature,” said Whitaker. “These girls take the stuff we work on for 18 weeks and implement it, and when they do that, they’re competing against teams that have been around for decades. It’s a tribute to the entire coaching staff and the girls coming in and working their tails off.”

The team will graduate just one player, senior Stephanie Murray, who shared captain status on the team with Rumsey. However, Whitaker said her leadership will be missed.

“Murray was probably our number one star of the weekend,” he said. “She’s our lone graduating senior, and she had a great weekend. She worked like crazy and led her team to a pretty respectable tournament. We didn’t win, but we played solid hockey. When you’re going into these kinds of situations, you always want to be able to come out and say we put our best effort forward, and Murray led us that way.”

Murray, who is the only woman remaining from the team’s inaugural season, witnessed the team grow from a dreadful 1-20 record in its first year to back-to-back national championship appearances in two years since. She is the Lakers all-time leader in both games played and assists.

“The team’s growth means a lot to me and to the entire program,” Murray said. “Hearing some coaches on other teams say that they never expected us to come this far this fast, and to hear that from other teams is really cool. Coming to a tournament like this and being able to put together a team that can really challenge the number one team makes it a lot more fun and raises the bar for us to look forward to things next year and the years to come.”