Girls High School Games In Fond du Lac

I got a chance to see parts of some of the games in Fond du Lac tonight that kicked off the girls high school hockey season. They had games going in two rinks, so it was impossible to catch all the action.

In the first game, Onalaska handled Appleton 5-1. I missed all of this game, but heard from a coach that was watching that Onalaska didn't even play their best hockey in this one. I've heard some chatter from Appleton about how good they are going to be this season, but personally think Fondy/Waupun, Onalaska and Superior are probably a step above in terms of talent.

Superior faced Milwaukee North Shore in the second game. Last I saw, Superior had broken a 3-3 tie with three quick goals to lead 6-3. I'm assuming they cruised to victory. I learned that Milwaukee North Shore not only has a new Coach for this season, but their goaltender chose not to play hockey this season due to repeated (supposedly 4) concussions last season. As they did not have another goaltender, they have had to convert a skater to goaltender this season, which is likely to have predictably poor results from what I saw (which is certainly not the fill-in goaltender's fault). On top of it, their roster lists 11 players, meaning they only have 10 skaters. Anna Pettingill and Taylor Van Damme both stood out for Superior.

The final game featured State Champ Fondy/Waupun against the St. Croix Valley Fusion. This game was back and forth with a lot of scoring chances that nobody could convert. F/W is pretty talented offensively lead by Amber Cmejla and Amy Knutson, but St. Croix is pretty good defensively led by Amanda Robinson and Megan Murphy. The game ended 0-0 in regulation, but Amy Knutson was able to lead Fondy/Waupun to victory with a great overtime short-handed goal deking out both a defenseman and the goaltender for the win. St. Croix started a Freshman goaltender in net who played pretty well. Samantha Lakin has been a back-up for Fondy/Waupun and is now a Junior. She played a nice game as well, earning the shutout. I was surprised that St. Croix Valley hung in this game so well as they graduated a lot of players, especially forwards, from last year's team.

By the way, this was the first game I've seen with the new rules....and I hate them already! I can see that the way each official calls games is going to have ZERO consistency this season.

I may get a chance to catch some more action tomorrow. Unfortunately, I did not get a schedule with the rosters and am not sure which teams play one another. Oh well, I'll track down whatever info I can tomorrow and post it.