The Mound Westonka/Southwest Christian girls hockey team started the new year with games vs. two Class AA heavyweights, sixth-ranked Holy Family on January 6 and 14th-ranked Blaine on January 8.

The game against the Fire started out difficult for the White Hawks, as they had glided through their last two games by scores of 7-1 and 9-0 without having to play at a high speed. That would change vs. the Fire, as they are a very talented team with seven Division I commits and a few other players who will be committing to colleges in the future. They came at MWHS/SWC in waves the first period and made the visitors scramble in their own zone. 

The scoreless game was broken at the 12:49 mark when a White Hawk forward had the puck knocked off her stick at the Fire blue line and a three-on-two rush resulted in the first goal of the game. Another defensive miscue allowed the Fire to score with just 34 seconds left in the first period and head to the locker room with a 2-0 lead and momentum. Shots were in favor of the Fire by a 12-3 margin.

The second period would be an up and down the ice period with shots 21-16 in favor of Holy Family. But the White Hawks sped up their game and had a number of scoring chances. A nice tip off of a shot from the point put Holy Family up 3-0 just 2:46 into the period. Seven minutes later, they would add another goal after a scrum in which a Fire player laid on White Hawk goalie Ashlyn Roth, not allowing her to get up and play the puck.

The White Hawks would score their only goal of the game on the power play with just under 3 minutes left in the period. A nice passing play from Gretta Pioske to Sydney Leonard to Emily Wendorf, who fired a low shot through the pads of Fire goalie Sedona Blair into the net. The White Hawks then came close to scoring again on a number of chances late in the period. The third period saw play tighten up a bit as shots were 6-4 in favor of the White Hawks, but both goals unfortunately were scored by the Fire leaving the score 6-1.

On Saturday, the White Hawks traveled north to Blaine to take on the Bengals. The Bengals had beaten rated Centenial and tied Top 10-rated Rogers earlier in the week. Gretta Pioske scored on a nice wrap around goal off of a rebound of a Emily Wendorf shot just 44 seconds into the game. Pioske would score again at the 6:22 mark off of a rebound of a Greer Hardacre shot. The score would remain that way through two periods with the White Hawks trailing in shots 20-18 but having more solid scoring chances. The line of Gisella Harder, Georgia Harmer, Tori Lacomy, and Bella Peterson did a great job in all areas of the ice to help keep the Bengals off balance.

The third period was ho hum until just over half way through. Syd Leonard was pulled down to create a power play for the White Hawks. Camryn Hargreaves brought the puck into the Bengal zone and was brought down behind the net. She kept battling for the puck and about 12-13 seconds later Pioske broke from the scrum with the puck and fired a pass to Leonard. Leonard then made a move around a Blaine penalty killer and then did a backhand saucer pass across the ice to Montana Courneya, who put a wrist shot into the net for a 3-0 lead with 7:41 left in the game. 

But the game was far from over. The Bengals scored with 2:38 left when the White Hawks failed to clear the zone. This fired up the home team and led to a wild finish. The Bengals pulled their goalie and somehow scored with 1:11 left when a shot rebounded out and went off what looked like a White Hawk skate into the net. The visitors bore down the rest of the game, not allowing a shot on goal by the Bengals and winning 3-2. It was another hard fought win over a Class AA opponent.

This week, the White Hawks hosted Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato on Tuesday (Youth Night) and travel to Section 5A opponent Pine City on Saturday before returning home next week to host Delano on Tuesday, January 18 (Parent Night) and Simley in a girls/boys doubleheader on Saturday, January 22.