Nicole's NCAA Notebook: November 3, 2025

• For the first time in awhile, Wisconsin looked fallible this weekend - not just because they lost, but because of the issues that showed up again and again. The mental mistakes, particularly on defense, were surprising. Errant passes, bad clearances, poor coverage, miscommunication and undisciplined play made them look sloppy and allowed Minnesota to stay in Friday's game, leaving the door open for their third-period dismantling of the Badgers.
• It would be fair to characterize this as the weekend of the revenge game. On Friday, Ohio State and Northeastern eked out late wins, Stonehill settled for a tie and Mercyhurst, RIT and Wisconsin all lost games. Arguably these teams were all the favorites heading into those games. And in each case, those teams responded with emphatic wins on Saturday. Stonehill beat LIU 4-2 and that was the smallest margin. Mercyhurst beat Delaware 4-0, Northeastern took a 7-3 win over BU, Ohio State went off for an 8-0 win over St. Thomas, RIT hung seven on Lindenwood in a 7-1 victory and Wisconsin took down Minnesota 7-2.
  I'm a big fan of a bounce back game. Losses will happen, but what a team does in response tells me a lot about their character. These big wins on the second day tell me about the fight in each of those programs.
• With the Wisconsin loss, just two undefeated teams remain - Penn State and Cornell.
• I'd imagine they were all for different circumstances (from International duty to injury, rest or just change of pace) but we saw a lot of different goalies in nets this weekend. Ohio State started Taylor Kressin in both games while St. Thomas put Nora Hannan in net on Saturday (though they switched her out as the score climbed). Wisconsin's Rhyah Stewart went in after Ava McNaughton left Friday's game. Sophia Villanueva took two starts for Minnesota Duluth with Eve Gascon with team Canada. UConn gave Taylor Belchetz her first start against Holy Cross on Friday. I'd imagine I'm forgetting some of these, but it was definitely surprising to tune in to some of these games and hear names I wasn't expecting.
• The goals keep coming in bunches, with another couple of hat tricks this weekend. There's no easy way to track this for me, but it certainly feels like a lot more than any year in my recent memory.
• Several teams will be on bye in the upcoming week because it's an International break built into the calendar. Once upon a time this is when the Four Nations Tournament took place, now it's usually taken by the Rivalry Series in North American and the Women's Euro Hockey Tour in Europe.
• I generally don't make massive changes in my poll voting week to week - I'm not swapping teams in and out as much as I am reordering things up top and possibly moving someone in to the bottom. I generally think you play yourself onto and off the poll, so I'm not making sweeping changes week to week. That being said, there are clearly a few teams that seem to have hung around because they started the season on the poll, so I made some fairly large moves this week to get more aligned with where I think teams actually are performing not the the Ivies have a couple of games behind them.
• Goals of the week:

Three goals in less than 60 seconds for Ohio State

This sorcery from Northeastern's Éloïse Caron

The passing on this St. Cloud State goal

Wisconsin's Maggie Scannell from her knees

This transition goal for Brown

Courtney Lilley's breakaway

Eden Granley's one-timer

Heck of a first career goal from Quinnipiac's Ella Johnson

This shorthanded forecheck steal from Naomi Boucher