ARDEN HILLS, Minn. – The Bethel University men's and women's hockey teams are preparing for their series with the University of St. Thomas this Friday and Saturday. The Royals men will host the Tommies Friday night at the Bethel University Arena before traveling to Mendota Heights and St. Thomas Academy Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. The women will play in Mendota Heights Friday before heading to Blaine for Saturday's 3 p.m. matinee. Both Royals and Tommie teams remain in the thick of the MIAC playoff races as they enter the final month of regular season play.
 
The Bethel women to expand their streak of three unbeaten performances going into the series with the second place Tommies. After a pair of victories, sandwiched around a 1-1 tie in their last three games, the Royals find themselves in sole possession of third place in the MIAC (5-3-2, 12 pts.) and two points behind second place St. Thomas (7-3, 14 pts.). League leader Gustavus continues to run away with the conference crown as the second ranked Gusties are 10-0 in the MIAC and 16-0 overall.

The Tommies enter the weekend with the best power play in the MIAC and the second best in the nation at 28.1%. UST's junior goaltender Alise Reidel owns the tenth best Goals Against Average in the nation at 1.5077.  

The Royals have a pair of goaltenders in freshman Jessica Allen (Roseville, Minn.) and senior Jess Newstrom (Cambridge, Minn.) amongst the national leaders in GAA. Allen is 11th with a 1.5563 and Newstrom is 23rd at 1.8759.  The Royals terrific trio of Cristina Masten, Lindsay Burman, and Biz Huss rank 3,4,5 respectively in scoring in the MIAC with 17,16, and 15 points. Freshman Caroline Kivisto and sophomore Kalie Johnson have scored 12 and 11 points on the year, which is still more than the Tommies leading tandem of Korinne O'Connor and Chrisina Rozeske who each have 10 points.
 
The Bethel men had last weekend off and hope to be re-energized as they enter the home stretch with just three weekend series left on the 2012-13 schedule. The Royals are mired in a seven game losing streak stretching over the course of 64 days since their last victory, a 6-2 win over Hamline on November 30th. At the time of that victory the Royals were 6-6 overall, tied for first place in the MIAC at 5-1 with St. Thomas and ranked #17 in the USCHO.com national poll. The Royals seven game losing streak, including four MIAC games, has knocked Bethel into sixth place in the conference standings at 5-5 with a total of 10 points. The top five teams make the MIAC playoffs and the Royals, with a strong finish, could put themselves into the mix as they are just one point behind Saint Mary's and Saint John's, who play each other this weekend, and two points behind Concordia. St. Thomas enters this weekend's series in sole possession of second place with 15 points, one behind league leader St. Olaf. The Oles, after sweeping the Royals, went on to sweep St. Thomas last weekend and take control of first place for the first time this season.

Since defeating the Royals 6-4 in a non-conference matchup to start the 2013 portion of their schedule on January 5th, the Tommies have gone just 2-3-1 in MIAC play. Outside of a seven goal outburst in their win over Saint Mary's the Tommies have struggled to generate a lot of offense during their last six games. They were shutout 1-0 by a Hamline team that had not won a game prior to their January 11th meeting. The Tommies won 3-0 the next night before settling for a 0-0 tie at Saint Mary's the next Friday. St. Thomas lost both games to St. Olaf by identical 3-2 scores giving the Tommies just four goals in their three losses and tie. On the season, the Tommies have allowed by far the fewest goals in the MIAC. Opponents have scored just 35 goals against UST in 19 games, an average of 1.82 GAA. The Tommies are just seventh in goals scored with 44. Senior Riley Horgan leads the Tommies in points with 15, 11 of those off assists. No Tommie has scored more than five goals on the season, but six have scored three or more, and 19 players have scored at least one goal.

Bethel's outstanding freshman, Mitch Hughes (Laguna Niguel, Calif.), enters the series having scored goals in eight of the past nine games and has registered at least one point in all nine of those games. Hughes point total of 19 is good for third in the MIAC. Senior Jack Paul (Minnetonka, Minn.) leads Bethel with 11 goals scored and has 17 points on the season.
 
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