The Massachusetts women’s club hockey team ended its season Saturday with a 3-2 win over the University of Rhode Island. The Minutewomen (12-11-3) hosted the Rams (9-15) in their third series of their 28-game season.
“I think that we’ve shown that we can play good defense, the next step now is to grow in our offensive game … we can only ask so much of our goaltending,” head coach Bill Wright said.
UMass had three goaltenders for the picking this season, Colleen McMakin, Sarah Matthews and Mary Honan. Matthews played the most games of the three, appearing in 14. She allowed only 29 goals to find the back of her net with a goals against average sitting at 2.21 percent for the season.
Their top points scorer was captain and senior Brianna O’Neill. She netted at least 10 goals this season and recorded eight or more assists, giving UMass a total of 18 or so points.
“I think that there were definitely ups and downs [this season],” O’Neill said. “But at the end of the day I wouldn’t have picked a better team to be the leader of and picked a better group of girls to be my sisters.”
UMass began its season on home ice in the Mullins Center Community Rink against Assumption University, winning 6-1. The two teams then met on the road, with the Minutewomen recording an early 2-0 record with a 7-2 win.
Although they started the season strong, UMass was handed heavy defeats over its scheduled games. The first of its 11 losses was an Oct. 4 game against the University of Colorado, when they fell 2-1.
The Minutewomen’s toughest opponents were Niagara University and Liberty University. They faced the Purple Eagles (11-10) four times over the course of two series, one at home and one on the road. It hosted the Flames (18-3) for a two-game series, falling in both matchups.
Despite difficult losses and spending 11 straight games on the road, UMass’ stand out opponent was URI. Facing each other six times over their 28-game calendar, there were many close contests between the two teams. Going nearly back and forth with winning results, the Minutewomen had a record of 4-2 against the Rams.
In ACHA hockey, to qualify for postseason playoffs, teams must be ranked in the top 12 of all D1 registered teams. UMass competes in the WD1 Independent conference along with Arizona State University, Niagara University, URI and the University of Washington.
The Minutewomen ended No. 2 in the division and No. 16 across all D1 teams behind the Sun Devils (15-7), who ended at No. 10 overall.
Looking towards the 2025-26 season, Wright says there will be “five or six newbies” on the UMass roster with five seniors leaving and both McmMakin and Sarah Dunford returning for fifth seasons.
O’Neill hopes the Minutewomen play their best and grow as a team, stating that this season was a “rebuild” year and hopes the team is “better than they were this year.”
“We [have to] do better against the top teams,” Wright said. “We can’t lose 1-0, we have to win 1-0 … that’s going to be the growth we need, to win those games that we need to win to get that [top 12] ranking.”
Emma Bensley can be reached at [email protected].
