NORTHFIELD, Vt. (WCAX) – At the D-I level, the college hockey season got underway a few weeks ago. But this weekend, many of our area’s D-III teams will open their seasons, including both groups of Norwich Cadets.
Expectations are once again high in Northfield this Winter. We’ll start on the women’s side, where Norwich enters the season ranked 14th in the D-III USCHO poll. It has been a busy offseason and preseason, but the Cadets do bring back the vast majority of their top scorers from last year, as well as primary goalkeeper Leocadia Clark from a team that went 19-6-2 and captured the NEHC regular season title.
Unfortunately, the Cadets were stunned in the conference semifinals last Winter by Southern Maine, and despite noncon wins over Middlebury and Plattsburgh, Norwich was left out of the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years. Needless to say, this is a motivated group heading into 2024-25.
“I don’t think there’s a day gone by where I haven’t thought about how last year ended,” said grad captain Neris Archambault. “I don’t want to speak for the whole team, but I know there’s a lot of people who also think the same way, including coaches. Practice this year has just looked completely different.”
“I think coming off of season where you don’t get to the goal that you had is tough,” Clark added. “So we have a lot to prove this year as a team. I think we’ve done that already this year as well, just in the locker room off the ice. We’re just pushing each other.”
“The expectation for this group, this program, this school, is that we want to play hockey as long as possible, well into March,” added head coach Sophie Leclerc Doherty. “I think we definitely have taken last year’s loss and turned that into a positive.”
On the men’s side, the Cadets are coming off a second place finish in the NEHC last Winter. But similarly to the women, they suffered an early conference tournament exit against the Huskies. Consistency was probably the biggest issue for Norwich last year: they regularly went toe to toe with some of the best teams in the country, including a late-season tie with eventual national champion Hobart. But too many losses to teams they feel they probably should have beaten kept the Cadets out of NCAA’s for just the fourth time since 2010.
The ups and downs were to be expected last Winter as it was a pretty young team. But with the core of this group having a year of experience playing together, Norwich is looking to re-ascend.
“I think last year we had a lot of young guys and we learned a lot of valuable lessons with that group,” added senior forward Clark Kerner. “I think the biggest thing for us this year is that freshman class from last year has taken a lot of big strides, and are stepping into bigger roles. They’re ready for more big moments after winning those lessons last year.”
“Yeah, it‘s huge,” added Johnny Johnson. “I mean, we’ve got it all on the rink here. It’s definitely a motivator of ours. Last year we got cut pretty short. It was our own fault. So I mean, all the guys know that we all expect more and we’re excited to make a push this year.”
The women start their season against Plattsburgh Saturday, and the men visit Curry Saturday.
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