Ohio State women’s hockey graduate seniors help lay team foundation

On Jan 17, 2023

Sophie Jaques knew exactly what was coming.

The stage was set for the Ohio State women’s hockey graduate senior defenseman, watching teammate Emma Maltais skate up for a faceoff with less than a minute left in overtime against Wisconsin. Jaques knew Maltais would win the faceoff, quickly getting the puck with Paetyn Levis on the outside, boxing out Badger defenders.

With a combined 16 years of collegiate experience on the ice, Ohio State needed a moment, a tone-setter in the team’s first game of 2023 to begin a final stretch in the Buckeyes’ attempt to repeat as national champions.

Maltais, Levis and Jaques knew the pressure. They knew the stakes. They had been there before.

Nothing needed to be said. They knew what it took to win in those final 36 seconds.

After Maltais won the faceoff and a lane was cleared by Levis, Jaques fired the puck past the Wisconsin keeper, igniting pandemonium, reminding Badgers and the gym who the No. 1 team in the country was.

To coach Nadine Muzerall, this is what separates Ohio State. It’s why the Buckeyes go into each game with a chip on their shoulder to live up to the expectation a No. 1 ranking holds, but with a swagger that there’s no other team worthy of that ranking. She has a roster of players with championship experience.

“At the end of the day, man for man, roster for roster, what’s going to separate is going to be the leadership and how healthy our culture is and how we truly are a unified front,” Muzerall said.

Ohio State’s culture has been in a building process over the past seven years, reaching the mountaintop with a 2022 national championship led by a team filled with seniors.

In 2023, five players — Jaques, Maltais, Levis, Gabby Rosenthal and Madison Bizal — are aiming for a return to that peak one last time as “super seniors” not only for themselves, but to lay the foundation for success to continue after their time with the program is complete.

Ohio State grows into national women’s hockey powerhouse

A national championship was never really a part of Ohio State’s recruiting pitch.

Rosenthal remembers a Buckeye coaching staff surrounding its message around the size and scope of the athletic department and school, using it to create a vision of what could be for a team that consistently finished around .500 and in the middle of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association without any experience in the NCAA Tournament.

But Rosenthal had a feeling about Ohio State, seeing a roster filled with players that looked and played like she did. To her, they were building blocks she felt she could be a part of.

“The type of players they had were really hard workers, really gritty players, and that was more what I was like,” Rosenthal said. “I wasn’t so talent-based. I really liked that aspect of just working hard and really trying to improve yourself every day.”

Progress was made before Rosenthal, Levis, Jaques and Bizal stepped onto campus, watching as their future team reached 24 wins in its second season under Muzerall with Maltais, a star freshman forward.

Jaques bought into the development process, finding an example to follow from the moment she arrived on campus in defenseman Jincy Dunne, an All-American who blossomed across five seasons into a team captain and two-time WCHA Defensive Player of the Year.

“Just dedication and hard work every day,” Jaques said on what she learned from Dunne. “Just making sure you’re giving it your best effort … and caring just as much about your teammates as yourself, and wanting everybody to do the best they can and contribute to this team.”

Dunne’s impact on the 2018 class proved to be a starting point for Ohio State, one that ignited an upward trajectory that started with missing the NCAA Tournament in 2019 and most recently ended with the program’s first national championship and 89 wins across four seasons.

In 2021-22, Ohio State recorded its first 30-win season in school history, using a 23-9 run in the postseason that ended with a 3-2 national championship win against Minnesota Duluth.

This national championship was not why Rosenthal chose Ohio State in the first place. But after winning one, Rosenthal said the title is proof that what the Buckeyes did over the course of her five years works.

“I think it just shows us what we can do and what we’re capable of more than anything,” Rosenthal said. “I don’t think it really changes our foundation or anything of that hard-working mentality. It’s great and what you strive for. It’s not like a one-and-done thing really either. That’s what our goal is every single year. I’m just carrying that forward.”

‘I want to be on the team for it’

Maltais watched Ohio State’s first national championship run from afar.

She proved to be a key part in the Buckeyes’ rise to prominence from the moment she joined the team in 2017, helping lead Ohio State to its first Frozen Four run as a freshman…