WCHA 2025-26 previews: St. Thomas Tommies
St. Thomas women's hockey sees this season as a "jump year" and is finally eligible for NCAA Tournament play
Ahead of WCHA conference play beginning this weekend, Badger Breakaway is previewing each of the eight teams in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. After launching the series with a preview of the Bemidji State Beavers, the St. Thomas Tommies are next.
WCHA coaches picked the Tommies to finish sixth in the conference. If St. Thomas lives up to the projection for its best-ever finish since joining the league’s ranks, it will have at worst an outside shot at playing the WCHA Final Faceoff inside its brand-new, on-campus arena.
To get there, St. Thomas needs continued development from its young offensive core and a plug-and-play solution to several losses on defense.
St. Thomas Tommies preview, at a glance
WCHA returning production spreadsheet
2024-25 record: 9-25-2, 6-21-1 WCHA
2024-25 WCHA finish: 7th of 8
2024-25 postseason: Swept 2-0 in WCHA conference tournament quarterfinal by Ohio State
2025-26 WCHA Preseason Coaches Poll prediction: 6th
2025-26 preseason national polls: Receiving votes
Preseason All-WCHA honorees: None
Returning production (conference rank)
Goals: 51 (5th)
Points: 139 (4th)
Goals percentage: 69.86% (3rd)
Points percentage: 73.54% (3rd)
Returning skaters games played percentage: 62.17% (2nd)
Goalie starts returning percentage: 88.89% (3rd)
Class breakdown
8 rookies
5 sophomores
9 juniors
3 seniors (T-7th)
Tommies set for “jump year” with postseason aspirations
In its first four seasons in NCAA Division I, St. Thomas has made modest improvements in the WCHA standings each year. Now, after completing the transition up from DIII, the Tommies are ready to make a playoff push.
“We’re really looking forward to this year,” head coach Bethany Brausen remarked. “As we’ve talked as a staff and with all of our returning players, and now incomers as well – just projecting what we’re really hopeful to be a jump year for St. Thomas.”
Returning four of her team’s top five scorers must give Brausen confidence in that projection. Rising sophomore Chloe Boreen finished second on the team with nine goals as a rookie and figures to continue her upward trajectory. Juniors Madison Brown, Ella Boerger, and Rylee Bartz, the only three players to record 20-point seasons for the Tommies since the transition to DI, return in hopes of improving a squad that only scored 2.03 goals per game last season.
St. Thomas rebuilding its defensive corps with twin transfers
While Brausen retained most of her top-line forwards (five of her top six), she lost much of the veteran talent on the blue line that the Tommies had come to rely on.
Two-way threat Maddy Clough and Swiss national team standout Nicole Vallario exhausted their eligibility in 2024-25, along with depth contributors Alli Pahl and Rachel Golnitz. Lauren Karl, who tallied one assist as a rookie for St. Thomas, opted to transfer to Long Island this offseason.
Enter JuliAnna and Jenessa Gazdik. The junior defenders transfer in from Minnesota State and figure to have an immediate impact for St. Thomas after combining for 36 points last year in Mankato. The twins do not have everything in common. JuliAnna is a lefty, and Jenessa shoots right-handed – giving Brausen a new pairing on the blue line with built-in chemistry.
That new-look defensive corps must help the Tommies prevent opponents from scoring. St. Thomas surrendered 3.89 goals per game in 2024-25, the fourth-worst mark in the country.
Further helping with goal-prevention, incoming transfer Julia Minotti should be a reliable backstop alongside rising sophomore goaltender Dani Strom. Minotti arrives after three seasons at Clarkson, where she backed up starters Holly Gruber and All-American Michelle Pasiechnyk. In 39 appearances for the Golden Knights, Minotti recorded a 1.46 goals against average, a 91.8% save percentage, and a win-loss record of 22-6-3 with nine shutouts.
The senior presence of Minotti complements that of Strom. Injuries thrust Strom into the full-time starter role as a rookie. The Dayton, Minnesota native often kept the Tommies afloat last season. She recorded a career-high 56 saves in a non-conference matchup against Clarkson and had another 50+ save game when she stopped 53 shots from the Ohio State Buckeyes in February.
Home playoff games coming to new St. Thomas women’s hockey arena?
With the transition to DI finished, St. Thomas is now eligible for NCAA Tournament selection. Plus, it is opening a new on-campus arena that will have an immediate impact on its players’ day-to-day.
“We’re just so thrilled to actually have an arena on campus,” senior defender Haley Maxwell said of the change. “Right now, we drive 20 minutes there and back every day,” from campus in St. Paul to the current ice rink in Mendota Heights, “and students can’t really come see us if they don’t have a car on campus. There’s really no good way to come there.”
Adding an on-campus home environment, one Brausen thinks “is going to be the nicest women’s hockey facility in the entire country,” just a ten-minute drive down the street from the Minnesota Golden Gophers’ Ridder Arena, the first women’s college hockey facility in the entire country, is undoubtedly a positive for players, coaches, and fans.
The WCHA will help christen the facility, hosting this season’s conference tournament Final Faceoff inside Lee & Penny Anderson Arena in March. If St. Thomas’ “jump year” includes its first Final Faceoff appearance, it would be on home ice.
“We have certainly talked about that reality of an end-of-the-year opportunity to play in a WCHA tournament for the first time in our program’s history, in our own building,” Brausen said. “That’s not lost on our players, that’s not lost on us as coaches.”
“How incredible would it be for us to play in our home building, in that space?”