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Storm Weather Hurricane Surge to Return to State

By Bill Berg Jr, WiPH Staff, 02/26/22, 1:30PM CST

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After a 1-0 Central Wisconsin Storm overtime win over the Hayward Hurricanes on Feb. 8th, you knew that the Girls Sectional 1 final between the two teams would be tense.

It was. The game did not disappoint and the Storm managed to outlast a furious third period charge by the Hurricanes to take a 2-1 win and advance to the WIAA State High School Hockey Tournament in Madison next week.

Storm coach Jacques DuVair said ahead of the game, "We're excited to see Hayward again.  They are a super quality team that has grown and improved a ton over the course of the season.  We played them early and won 5-1.  Our veteran players were able to overwhelm the youth on their roster the first time around.  In our second game, it was much tighter.  They played great defense and really limited our opportunities.  We found a way in OT to score for the 1-0 win, but it could have gone either way."

The Hurricanes owned the first few minutes of ice time in the first period, but a Hayward penalty at the 8:42 mark shifted momentum to the Storm and a 5-3 shot advantage for the Hurricanes turned into an 11-7 advantage for the Storm by the period's end. Neither team managed to score with both Greta Woelber and Chloe Lemke turning away quality chances.

The Storm finally managed to crack Woelber at 5:47 of the second period. Ava Rode held in a Hayward clearing attempt and passed along the blueline to her partner Madi DePuydt who fired it on net, where it was deflected by Logan Crawford to make it 1-0, and mark the only scoring of the second period. Shots were even, 6-6 in the frame.

The Storm made it 2-0 just 1:53 into the third period. Rode fired a shot from the point, it was tipped by Tristan Wicklund in front, but stopped by Woelber. Gabi Heuser jumped on the rebound to score and give the Storm a 2-0 lead.

After another five or so minute of even play the Hurricanes started applying pressure and took over the game, keeping the Storm pinned in their end, and getting quality chances on net.

Hayward had back-to-back two-on-one opportunities where they failed to record a shot on goal. On the first the shot sailed wide, and the second was broken up by the Storm defense. 

Then they added a breakaway but Lemke was up to the task. Eventually the Hurricanes surpassed the Storm on the shot counter and kept applying pressure.

At 1:33 they pulled Woelber for the extra attacker and at 1:01, after more than 6 periods of game time against the Storm over the last two games, they finally scored.

Makaela Reinke came into the zone hard and drove to the corner and found Hadley Owen on the half boards. Owen fired a shot-pass toward the net and Reese Sheehan deflected it up and in to cut the lead to 2-1.

Woelber went back into her net for the ensuing faceoff, and the Canes weren't able to get her off the ice again until the 15 second mark and by then they had run out of time, leaving the Storm the 2-1 victory.

Woelber stopped 19 of 21 shots for the Hurricanes in the loss. Lemke stopped 23 of 24 for the Storm.

WiPH Game Summaries