Beavers set to host No. 10 Huskies for regular season finale at Sanford Center

BSU Women’s Hockey hosts No. 10 St. Cloud State to end 2023-24 regular season

The Bemidji State University Women’s Hockey team ends its 2023-24 regular season this weekend at Sanford Center and hosts No. 10 St. Cloud State University for its final Western Collegiate Hockey Association series.

The Beavers will honor their six seniors in part of senior day Saturday afternoon honoring Taylor Nelson, Kayla Santl, Calli Forsberg, Khloe Lund, Gabbie Smith and Emerald Kelley.

The Beavers (4-26-2, 3-22-1 WCHA) hope to clinch the seventh seed in the WCHA Playoffs and are looking to earn points against the 10th ranked Huskies (15-15-2, 10-14-2 WCHA). The two-game league series begins Friday, Feb. 23 at 6:01 p.m. from Sanford with game two and senior day Saturday at 3:01 p.m.

Each game will be streamed online at B1G+ with play-by-play commentary provided by Rob Aitken of the Beaver Radio Network. The broadcast can also be found on your radio dial at 94.3FM or online at www.beaverradionetwork.com.

The Beavers are locked in either the seventh seed or eighth seed for the WCHA Playoffs entering the final weekend of the regular season.

Bemidji State holds the seventh seed entering the weekend and sit two points in front of eighth-seeded University of St. Thomas.

The Beavers can clinch the seventh-seed with five points against the Huskies but will be scoreboard watching as the Tommies have a home-and-home series with Minnesota State University, Mankato.

BSU clinches the seventh seed Friday night if UST loses in regulation, overtime or the shootout and the Beavers defeat SCSU in regulation.

The top six seeds in the WCHA Playoffs has been set with No. 1 Ohio State University winning the regular season championship last weekend to earn the top seed.

University of Wisconsin finished second with University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Duluth, St. Cloud State and Minnesota State locking in seeds three through six, respectively.

The quarterfinal round of the WCHA Playoffs are hosted by the four-highest seeds with one through four hosting the best-of-three series.

Bemidji State will either travel to Ohio State or Wisconsin, March 1-3.

The Beavers return home looking to end a six-game losing skid and bounce back from two losses at (RV) Minnesota State last weekend.

After they were held off the scoresheet in game one, the Beavers bounced back to score twice Saturday afternoon but fell 2-5 in game two.

Junior Alyssa Watkins scored her third goal in seven games while freshman defender Riley Reeves scored her first collegiate goal in the series finale.

The Beavers and Huskies met earlier this season way back in October with the then ranked No. 15 Huskies sweeping the Beavers by scores of 2-5 and 0-3.

Bemidji State holds a slight lead in its all-time series with SCSU with a 51-50-10 record since 1999-00.

However, the Huskies have been the better team as of late and won the last six meetings dating back to Nov. 4, 2022.

BSU’s last win against SCSU was Jan. 22, 2022 in Bemidji.

The Beavers are 26-22-4 when hosting St. Cloud State.

Freshman Hailey Armstrong led the Beavers in their series at St. Cloud back in October scoring both Beaver goals in the series.

Captain Taylor Nelson paces the team with six career points off a goal and five assists versus the Huskies.

Junior Abbie Thompson started both games in net for BSU last series and stopped 51-of-59 shots.

Head coach Jim Scanlan is 22-19-2 against the Huskies in his 10 seasons leading the BSU Women’s Hockey program.

Bemidji State is led by Nelson and Gabbie Smith who have each posted 12 points.

Smith paces the team with 11 assists while Hailey Armstrong leads the team with nine goals and has 10 points.

Her nine goals are the most by a BSU freshman since Tara Hiscock also scored nine goals in the 2004-05 season.

Nelson, Smith and Armstrong have combined to score 17 of the team’s 38 goals (.447) and 35 percent of the teams points (34-96).

The Beavers’ second line of Kayla Santl, Shelby Breiland and Alyssa Watkins has found its scoring touch of as of late and has scored six of the last 10 Beaver goals.

Santl drives the line scoring a career-high nine points off six goals and three assists while Breiland (1g-4a) and Watkins (3g-1a) follow with five and four points, respectively.

Senior Khloe Lund, junior Makenna Deering and freshman Riley Reeves each lead the Beavers’ blue line with six points.

Bemidji State leads the nation with 563 blocked shots, led by national leader Riley Reeves (87). Lund follows with 80 blocked shots and is tied for second in the country while Deering has totaled 62 to sit 12th.

14 Beavers were named to the WCHA All-Academic Team this week with 11 earning WCHA Scholar-Athlete distinction by achieving a GPA of 3.5 or higher.