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Kyle Walljasper rushed for 122 yards and passed for 173 more and three touchdowns in UMD’s 38-14 Homecoming football victory against Winona State. Photos by John Gilbert.

Both of UMD’s Division 1 hockey teams will begin a deep plunge into uncharted waters this weekend, and both will do it at home, in AMSOIL Arena.  

The UMD women will face Long Island University for games at 6 pm Friday and 3 pm Saturday, and while a greatly revised lineup will offer the mystery of who will score goals, who will defend the net, and who will stop opposing goals.

What we DO know about the UMD women’s team is that Maura Crowell is back for her 10th season as head coach, although she lost her very capable “security blanket” of associate coach Laura Bellamy, who left to take on her first head coaching position at Harvard, her alma mater.  

There was considerable speculation that when media and ex-player pressure caused long-term coach Katey Stone to retire, because of controversial stories about hazing and other in-program irregularities, that Crowell might be sought as Stone’s replacement.

Crowell had joined Stone’s staff as an assistant and then associate head coach, and coached the Crimson when Stone went off to coach the U.S. Olympic team. Bellamy, who graduated from Denfeld, played four years at Harvard during that time and stayed on as goalie coach, before coming home when Crowell was hired to replace Shannon Miller at UMD.  

While there has been no answers to the question over the summer, I had a brief conversation with Crowell wondering about her interest in going back to the Harvard program she knows so well. It went something like this:  

“Did you call Harvard when the opening occurred?” I asked.  

“No,” said Crowell.  

“Did Harvard call you?” I followed up.  

“I’m not going to answer that one,” she said, cheerfully.  

As an interested inquisitor, that’s all I needed to know. Sometimes “no comment” says more than a misleading deflection of an answer. She didn’t call Harvard, but Harvard obviously called Crowell, and she turned down the opportunity. Losing Bellamy, who had been appointed associate head coach by Crowell, was not something Crowell might have wanted, but it makes sense. 

I asked her if she was surprised Harvard hired Bellamy, and Crowell said that my theory that the Crimson wanted to hire a newcomer to rebuild the program.

“Also, she’s an alum, and Harvard really loves its alums,” Crowell said. She agreed with me that Harvard for many years had stood as the pinnacle of Eastern women’s hockey programs. “But you’ve got to keep working at it,” Crowell said. “They won only seven games last season, so it will take a lot of work and some time to get back into contention.”  

On the ice, the loss of scoring stars Gabbie Hughes and Naomi Rogge, defensemen Ashton Bell and Maggie Flaherty, and stellar goaltender Emma Soderberg leave Crowell with some major holes to fill on the ice, and while Long Island should be the perfect opening test, there won’s be much time to adjust things because WCHA favorite Ohio State comes to AMSOIL Arena next week.  

On the men’s side, coach Scott Sandelin has said that he enjoys being a college coach, and is not looking to move up to a couple of NHL possibilities, despite the success of former college coaches Dave Hakstol from North Dakota and Jim Montgomery from Denver. Sandelin has a lot of returnees to fill the Bulldog jerseys, but sophomore Ben Steeves is the only proven scorer.

There is plenty of room for several solid two-way players to fill in the scoresheet, and they will get a major test Saturday at 7 pm Saturday. Michigan Tech comes in for the designated U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame game. The Bulldogs fell from their contending status last year, but Sandelin said he enjoyed pushing this group to a strong finish last season. That leaves the question of whether the Bulldogs will find enough scoring to be a contender, or falter from a lack of proven scorers.  

Michigan Tech, meanwhile, has a strong program that is seen as a challenger in the CCHA, now that Minnesota State Mankato’s perennial champion must rebuild to replace coach Mike Hastings, who was hired as Wisconsin’s new head coach, and a number of his Mavericks took advantage of the transfer portal to follow him there to help rebuild the Badgers fortunes. If facing Michigan Tech isn’t a strong enough dose of Upper Peninsula opposition, Northern Michigan comes to AMSOIL next week to face UMD. 

Sam Pitz tumbled over Winona State’s Clay Schueffner for his second of three TED receptions.

Homecoming battles    

The UMD football team put sophomore quarterback Kyle Walljasper to work again last weekend, and he and an opportunistic defense led the Bulldogs to a 38-14 Homecoming victory at Malosky Stadium. While Walljasper has been UMD’s top rusher and top scorer through its undefeated start to the Northern Sun race, he shared the wealth this time by scoring nary a touchdown.  

Daniel Mitchell caught only one pass but it went for UMD’s 18-yard opening touchdown.

He did, however, lead the game in rushing, carrying the ball 19 times for 122 yards, but he silenced all the critics who accuse him of being a one-trick pony by passing for 175 more yards, including three touchdowns. He opened the 21-0 first half with am 8-yard touchdown pass to Daniel Mitchell up the left sideline for the only scoring in the first quarter. Walljasper next pulled off a slick double-pass play, hitting Dashaun Ames behind the line of scrimmage, and Ames lofted a pass over the scrambling Warrior defense to Sam Pitz, for a 20-yard touchdown pass and a 14-0 lead.  

UMD’s Drew Hennessy (56) took down Winona quarterback Cole Stenstrom, one of his four sacks.

Walljasper connected with Pitz himself for a 37-yard touchdown play and the 21-0 halftime lead. It looked like a runaway as the second half began, and that appeared certain when Ames took the kickoff and raced 93 yards for another touchdown and a 27-0 edge. But Winona State made some adjustments and quarterback Cole Stenstrom, a junior from the Twin Cities northern suburb Arden Hills, led the spirited comeback with a pair of touchdown passes, torching the UMD defense for 30 and 49 yards. That closed the gap to 35-14, but Curt Cox put up the only points of the fourth quarter with a 38-yard field goal to add to his five extra points, for the 38-14 final.   

Dashaun Ames spun away from a tackle, and later scored on a 93-yard touchdown return of the second-half kickoff.

Next door, in Romano Gym, the No. 10 UMD volleyball team went into the weekend facing the challenge of taking on No. 1 Wayne State Saturday afternoon, right after the football game. But before that, UMD had to face Augustana in a Friday tune-up. If there was to be an upset at Romano, however, it was not by the Bulldogs.  

Augustana played with high energy and efficiency that put the Bulldogs on their heels and went on to win a five-set battle. Augustana won 26-24 in the first set, and 25-23 in an equally close second set. UMD got it together to come from a 14-10 deficit and win 25-21 in the third set, and equalized the match with a 25-16 fourth. But in the 15-point fifth set, Augustana regained its lost momentum and jumped to a 4-1 lead.

The Bulldogs caught up at 8-8, and 8-8, but Augustana belied its 4-7 record by looking like the contender in the building and winning 15-12.   “They played very well,” said UMD coach Jim Boos. “We had gotten better in sets three and four, but they were physical and aggressive and came out to regain the momentum in set five. I hate to lose, especially in this building, and matches I thought we should win. That’s three now.”  

And one day later, it became four, although from the outset, Wayne State seemed intent on showing why they are ranked No. 1 in the nation among Division II schools. Wayne won 25-19, 25-17, and 25-22 to sweep the Bulldogs with a mixture of heavy kills and soft-touch change-ups that always seemed to find the floor in the middle of UMD’s side. UMD’s usually consistent attackers were off their game throughout the match, and the Bulldogs hit for a measly .190 percentage against Wayne’s .330. Maggie Brahmer had 15 kills and Taya Beller 11 to lead Wayne.  

UMD had the unusual situation where freshman Paige Decker led with 11 kills, and always reliable Cianna Selbitschka added 10, moving up from the middle back to bolster the Bulldogs with some spark. But little-used freshman Madeline Guetzkow was a pleasant surprise, getting her most extensive play and ripping some potent left-handed kills cross-court and up the right sideline for seven kills. That meant against their toughest opponent of the season, the Bulldogs had Selbitschka in the middle, and two freshmen — Decker at left outside and Guetzkow right outside — to keep them in the match. 

Taya Beller of No. 1 Wayne State slammed one of her 11 kills in the 25-19, 35-17, 25-22 sweep over UMD, as Hope Schjenken (9) and Gianna Selbitschka went up to block.