The 2nd ranked Central Wisconsin Storm avenged an early season loss with a 4-1 win over the #1 ranked Superior Spartans at Marathon Park Saturday afternoon.  Sophomore Sophie Bohlin tallied a natural hat trick scoring the game’s first three goals and classmate Claire Calmes turned in an impressive 29 save performance to lead CWS to their eleventh straight win.

The Spartans brought a perfect 10-0 record against Wisconsin teams into the showdown.  A fast-paced opening period featured a stellar point blank save on Michaela Reinke by Calmes with about nine minutes to play in the period.  With 3:30 to play in the period Superior’s Indigo Fish was called for hooking putting CWS on the powerplay.  Sophie Bolin took a perfect feed from Ava Whitmore in the high slot a lasered a wrist shot past Kailey Nault for a 1-0 Storm lead.  Calmes would deny Reinke again with about ten seconds left in the period to preserve the lead.  Shots in the period were even at eight each.

Back-to-back penalties to open the second period put the Spartans on a 5 on 3 powerplay.  Calmes made a sprawling save on Autumn Cooper as she made her way across the crease to keep Superior off the scoreboard.  Midway through the period junior defenseman Abby Dhein shutdown a Spartan attack and chipped the puck ahead to create a two-ono-one the other way.  Gabi Heuser drew the Spartan defenseman toward her then slide a pass to Bohlin who beat Nault for a 2-0 Storm lead.  Bohlin completed her hat trick with a minute remaining in the period when she grabbed a loose puck coming off the wall and slipped wrist shot under Nault’s pads.  Superior out shot the Storm 12-6 in the period.

Spartan junior Autumn Cooper scored her 29th goal of the season just over four minutes into the third period to close the gap to 3-1.  The Storm powerplay had answer at 7:46 when junior Tristan Wicklund buried a pass from Hannah Baumann under the crossbar for a 4-1 final margin.   Superior held the final edge in shots, 30-24.  Calmes improved to 9-0, allowing just eight total goals on the season.  

Co-Head Coach Dan Bauer praised his team’s effort, “It is easy to pick out the stars of the game, but this was truly a great team effort,” he said.  “Holding their top two goal scorers (Cooper & Reinke) to a single point was a team accomplishment and it took every one of them in that lockeroom to make that happen.  They are two outstanding hockey players,” he continued.  “Our last three games have all felt like playoff games and we have played well enough to find a way to win them.”  

Sunday the Storm will find out if they have done enough to earn the number one seed in their sectional.  Next week the playoff vibe will continue with home games against #5 ranked Fond du Lac (Tuesday) and #3 ranked Bay Area (Thursday).   Saturday they will conclude their regular season with road game at the Lakeshore Lightning.