Hockey, hockey, hockey

Pat Christman/The Free Press

With the Mavericks in Anchorage over the weekend, I had a chance to watch the Gustavus Adolphus men's hockey team play on Friday night, while Jim Rueda covered the Gustie women on Saturday.

The women, first of all, won their eighth MIAC championship in a row by sweeping St. Mary's. The Gusties are 12-0-1 in conference play this year and 18-1-2 overall.

The men's team is in more of a dogfight, though. The Gusties' win over St. Mary's on Saturday put them in a tie for second place in the conference standings with one weekend to play. They'll need to get at least one point against St. Olaf to clinch a top-five finish and a playoff spot. If you're wondering how hard points are to come by, look no further than Friday's tie with the Cardinals, which left the Gusties feeling like they lost the game (they did lose a point, though, blowing a two-goal lead in the third period).

Pat Christman/The Free Press

For Monday's paper, I did a feature on Gustavus senior captain Ross Ring-Jarvi (right). He's the only senior and holdover from the 2008-09 team that advanced to the NCAA Division III championship game and finished as the national runner-up.

Ring-Jarvi is an impressive athlete. Coach Brett Petersen said he hasn't coached many like him, comparing him to Matt Cullen in terms of competitiveness and drive. Ring-Jarvi also biked across the country last summer, making the 3,100-mile trek in 22 1/2 days — most recommendations suggest taking 50 days to do it — and with little to no training.

In other Mankato-area hockey news, second-seeded Mankato East/Loyola was eliminated from the Section 2A tournament on Saturday, falling to Hutchinson. The Cougars had their best season but missed out on a chance to get to state. Hutchinson's Sara Carlson proved to be too much to handle, scoring a hat trick. The Ms. Hockey finalist is committed to play college hockey at New Hampshire.

The MSU women's hockey team closed out its home schedule on Saturday with a 3-3 tie against North Dakota, although UND got the extra point by winning the shootout. It was the Mavericks' first non-loss in 11 games. They will close out the regular season at Minnesota Duluth this weekend.