The Falcons are the undisputed queens of Division III women\u2019s hockey.<\/p>\n
Wisconsin-River Falls secured the three-peat Sunday, dominating from start to finish en route to a 4-0 victory over Nazareth.<\/p>\n
The Falcons are 87-4-2 over the last three campaigns. The only loss this season for Wisconsin-River Falls (30-1) came to Wisconsin-Eau Claire back in \u2026 November. From there, it won its final 26 games.<\/p>\n
Twenty-four of those victories came by multiple goals, with a November win over St. Olaf and the Falcons\u2019 national quarterfinal win over Williams College serving as the lone outliers.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s showing on the biggest stage was a prime demonstration of the program\u2019s dominance. The Falcons outshot the New York school 44-22. They controlled play from start to finish.<\/p>\n
Nazareth finished with a record of 27-2-1.<\/p>\n
A special performance from Nazareth netminder Mia Gonsalves, who tallied 40 saves, was required to keep the game semi-competitive. She stopped 13 shots in the opening stanza to keep the game scoreless through one.<\/p>\n
But the Falcons broke through early in the second period, with Brooklyn Riley scoring on the Falcons\u2019 prolific power play just a minute into the frame. Fewer than three minutes later, Sophia Hess lit the lamp to make it 2-0 Wisconsin-River Falls.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where the score stood through the next period and a half until the Falcons found goal No. 3 on a Madison Kadrlik redirect of a Sami Pool shot from the point to effectively put the championship on ice.<\/p>\n
The party was officially underway when Hess potted her second goal of the day, an empty netter with 2 minutes, 16 seconds to play.<\/p>\n
Jordan O\u2019Kane delivered a 22-save shutout for the Falcons, her ninth of the season.<\/p>\n
Each of River Falls\u2019 three championships have come on its home ice, Hunt Arena. The Falcons faithful again packed the rink Sunday to celebrate a third straight crowning.<\/p>\n
Wisconsin-River Falls is the third Division III program to win three straight national titles, joining Middlebury in the mid-2000s and Plattsburgh State, who won four straight titles from 2014-17. The Falcons will have a chance to equal that run next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Falcons are the undisputed queens of Division III women\u2019s hockey. Wisconsin-River Falls secured the three-peat Sunday, dominating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[1880,1879,5,60728,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-530125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-college-hockey","9":"tag-college-sports","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-river-falls","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116315050826004932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}