Alexia Côté and
Rylan Haslam scored early and
Kassidy Lawrence made 29 saves, as the St. Lawrence University women's hockey team fell to the No. 1 Wisconsin Badgers 6-2 on Friday night at Appleton Arena.
The first game of 2026-27 for both teams, SLU fell to 0-1, while Wisconsin improved to 1-0.
Getting things started for the Scarlet and Brow,
Kennedy Emerson pulled the puck off the boards near the Saints bench, then kept the Saints onside, which allowed Côté to push forward and rip a high shot past Ava McNaughton to give the Saints an early 1-0 lead over the Badgers.
Just one minute and three seconds later, Barbora Juříčková won the puck battle in the corner and
Cheyenne Degeer sent a centering pass for
Rylan Haslam from behind the goal line, and Haslam tipped the puck past McNaughton for the 2-0 advantage.
With 3:01 to play in the first, Finley McCarthy put the Badgers on the board, but the Saints held onto a 2-1 lead over the top-ranked Badgers after the first 20 minutes.
The Badgers scored three goals in the second, including one on the power play, to build a 5-2 lead over the Saints.
Charlotte Pieckenhagen and Kelly Gorbatenko tallied goals in the third for the 6-2 final.
"That was a great hockey game for the fans to watch," said head coach
Chris Wells. "About as physical with speed as we've seen here. We were able to get off to a great start and get a really good sense of what type of team we can be. Wisconsin is so dynamic and good off the rush and they showed us why they are the top team in the country. We continued to play hard and get very good chances throughout the game. We look forward to another hard-fought game tomorrow!"
Lawrence stopped 29 shots for the Saints. McNaughton stopped 14 shots and Rhyah Stewart came in for a relief effort and stopped 11 shots.
Wisconsin finished with an 82-45 advantage in shots and led 35-27 in shots on goal. St. Lawrence blocked 20 shots to the Badgers' eight.
"It was a great atmosphere in Appleton tonight and our players felt it," Wells added. "Thanks to all of the fans that came out to support!"
The Saints and the Badgers meet for game two of their weekend series, tomorrow September 25 at 3 p.m.
