The St. Olaf men’s hockey team upset nationally-ranked Augsburg University on Saturday, March 5 to win their second-ever MIAC Playoffs title and clinch a berth in the NCAA national tournament, beating the top-seeded Auggies 5-2 in the culmination of an outstanding playoff run.
The Oles found themselves seventh in the MIAC standings after finishing the regular season with 8 wins, 14 losses and three ties. Augsburg, by contrast, finished first place in the MIAC with a record of 22 wins and only three losses, good enough to place the Auggies at fourth place in the national division three men’s hockey rankings.
Although placing seventh in the conference meant that St. Olaf got a bye in the first round of the playoffs, their path to the championship was nowhere near easy. The Oles first played Concordia College, who placed second in the MIAC standings behind Augsburg, in the quarterfinals. The seventh-seeded Oles captured their first upset of the playoffs against the second-seeded Cobbers, completing a comeback win by a score of 3-2 after forward Sean Walsh ’25 scored with just over one minute left. Augsburg, on their part, wavered a bit in the quarterfinals, only beating the ninth-seeded Gustavus Adolphus College 4-3 after a period of overtime play.
St. Olaf then traveled up to face Saint John’s University on Wednesday, March 2 in the semifinals. Saint John’s themselves finished third in the conference and beat the sixth-seeded Saint Mary’s University by a comfortable score of 5-1 in the quarterfinals. Despite this result, the Oles handed the Johnnies their eighth loss of the season by a score of 3-1, powered by goals from Jonathan Young ’25, Tyler Cooper ’25, and Noah Heisler ’24. On the same night 80 miles away in Minneapolis, Augsburg shut-out fifth-seeded Bethel University, scoring five goals in the process.
The final was then set. St. Olaf, after upsetting both the second and third seeds on their home rinks, would visit first-seed Augsburg who, despite a shaky start, had found solid footing in the playoffs, meeting the expectations set by a dominant regular season campaign. To complete their remarkable playoff run the Oles would have to land their biggest upset yet against a seemingly unbeatable team on their home rink.
In what any division three hockey fan would expect to be a rout, an over-performing band of largely underclassmen being put in their place by a preeminent team full of experience, turned out to be the total opposite. The Oles scored once in the first period, twice in the second, and another early in the third to jump out to a 4-0 lead before the Auggies netted their opening goal.
The home crowd at Augsburg’s Ed Saugestad Rink were left stunned, while the St. Olaf faithful — who traveled up to the Twin Cities on the cold and rainy Saturday night — were ecstatic.
Augsburg pulled one back in the third period before forward Brendan Darby ’24 found the net for the Oles fifth goal of the night. The Auggies scored one more consolation goal late in the period before the horn sounded on a resounding 5-2 St. Olaf win, capping the Oles’ playoff crusade in their most impressive upset yet. Forward Matthew Pointer ’25 scored the opening goal, while Young scored twice in the game and Walsh scored once. Goalkeeper Lukas Haugen ’24 made 25 of 27 possible saves on the night, staunching the Auggies’ usually potent attack.
Let’s review how St. Olaf got here. After an altogether unremarkable regular season, the Oles took down each of the top three Playoff seeds on their path to a MIAC Championship, a spot that was presumably reserved for the fourth-ranked Augsburg both coming into and then coming out of the MIAC’s regular season. Because they were the lower seeded team in each of their three Playoff games, the Oles had to play each contest on the road, traveling first nearly 300 miles up to Concordia in Moorhead, Minn., then over 100 miles to St. Cloud to face Saint John’s, and then finally to the Twin Cities against Augsburg. A loyal band of fans followed the team up to each of these locations to watch the Oles play, ultimately being rewarded by watching the team win their second-ever MIAC Championship.
But besides the amazement of this Playoff journey, what is possibly more exceptional is the on-ice performance that got the Oles here. The top five points earners — calculated by adding a players’ goals and assists tallys together — for St. Olaf throughout the season are all first-years. Cooper, Walsh, and Young occupy the first three spots, respectively, joined by forwards Troy Bowditch ’25 and Ethan Hersant ’25 for fourth and fifth. A 3-2 overtime loss against Augsburg at home during the regular season on Jan. 28, a game in which Cooper and Darby netted the two Ole goals, foreshadowed the team’s upset capability. It’s a team full of potential, a potential that has seemingly been realized sooner than previously expected.
St. Olaf will play in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday, March 12 against St. Norbert College. The game can be livestreamed on the St. Olaf athletics website. Regardless of the team’s result, this season will undoubtedly be viewed as a massive triumph and an impressive foundation that can launch St. Olaf into even greater success to come.
