The Lindenwood–Belleville Lynx women's ice hockey team represented Lindenwood University – Belleville (LU–B or LU–Belleville) in Women's Division 1 of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) and in Women's Midwest College Hockey (WMCH), following a successful stint in the Western Women's Collegiate Hockey League (WWCHL). The team was founded for the 2014–15 season, as part of a rapid expansion of LU–B's athletic department, and quickly became one of the ACHA's top programs. The Lynx claimed three regular season conference championships and one playoff title (all in the WWCHL), and qualified for five ACHA National Tournaments, highlighted by a second-place finish in 2019.
History
2014–15
Lindenwood–Belleville announced the addition of women's (and men's) hockey on November 25, 2013, with the program scheduled to begin play during the 2014–15 season. The nearly-one-year lead time paid large dividends, as first coach and director of hockey operations Craig Buntenbach landed a 15-player freshman class that helped ensure the team's immediate competitiveness. The diverse inaugural group included future stars like Americans Ashley Dietmeier and Alexandra Brown, Canadians Blake Fuller, Maddy Millar and Jessica Moon, and New Zealand's Firth Bidois. Jaylene Anderson and Delaney Peters, both of whom came over from perennial ACHA Division 2 contender Rainy River Community College, provided an immediate veteran presence, while big Alaskan Alahna Stivers joined the roster late in the season.
For much of the year, things proceeded in a better-than-expected fashion for a first-year team, as the Lynx generally struggled against the ACHA's better teams but managed to reel off wins against most others. The first games in program history were 10–1 and 12–1 thrashings at defending national champion Miami, but LU–B recovered to sweep its first home games against Wisconsin at the Ice Zone the following weekend.
The Lynx entered the ACHA rankings for the first time in the November 23rd edition of the poll, checking in at 14th, a position the team would hold for the remainder of the season. Lindenwood–Belleville was 11–8–1 at the time of the ranking and were coming off of a pair of closer–than–expected losses to national title contender Adrian.
By late January, LU–B's record was 15–11–1, although four of the wins came against non-ACHA team Iowa, four others were over fellow first-year team Midland, and two more involved ACHA Division 2's Iowa State as the opponent. There wasn't a ton of indication as to what would come next: the Lynx collecting their first-ever signature victory, stunning No. 2 Liberty by a 2–1 count at the Ice Zone on January 30. Stivers (who was playing her first game with the team) answered an early goal by the Flames' Carrie Jickling on the power play, while Anderson buried the winner late in the third period on Dietmeier's assist. Bidois also starred, making 35 saves to negate a shot count of 36–8 in LU's favor.
LU–Belleville finished the regular season well, winning three of four after the Liberty series, including arguably their second-biggest win of the year, over 12th-ranked Robert Morris (IL). The Lynx wound up third in the WWCHL standings behind Colorado State and Minnesota, an appropriate-enough position given their 0–4–0 record against the Rams and Gophers and their 10–0–0 mark against all other conference teams. That extreme stratification held in the WWCHL playoffs, held in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, where LU–B won a first-round game with Colorado but dropped a semifinal to Minnesota before recovering to close out the year with a third-place-game win over Wisconsin. The Colorado game was among the most dramatic wins in early team history, as Moon scored the 3–2 contest's winner with four seconds remaining. Millar assisted on the decider to cap a three-point outing, including a goal to tie things up midway through the third period.
Dietmeier (44 points) and Fuller (43) both ended the year among the ACHA's top ten scorers.
2015–16
Lindenwood–Belleville's second season started with a bang, as the team hired Katherine Hannah as its new head coach. Hannah, a native of Toronto, Ontario, is one of the most decorated athletes in the history of Lindenwood University's St. Charles, Missouri campus and ACHA women's hockey. She began her career with the Lindenwood Lady Lions ice hockey team as it was being established in 2003–04, playing through 2007–08. In her five seasons, she was the ACHA's Zoë M. Harris Player of the Year twice (one of only two players to win the award multiple times), a five-time All-American, helped the Lady Lions to the 2006 and 2008 ACHA national championships and rolled up a whopping 407 career points. She was a 2013 inductee to the Lindenwood Sports Hall of Fame, while a banner with her number 6 hangs in the Lions' home Lindenwood Ice Arena. Hannah had been coaching at Simsbury High School before making her way back to the Lindenwood system.
Hannah's tenure could not have started better, as the Lynx bolted out to an early 9–0–0 record and jumped from 14th in the rankings (LU–B began 2015–16 exactly where it closed 2014–15) all the way up to eighth - in position to receive an invitation to the ACHA National Tournament - by the end of October. The schedule stiffened from that point, but the squad acquitted itself well. In what could be characterized as the first truly pivotal series in program history, pitting teams battling for league titles and nationals bids against each other, the Lynx battled to a pair of come-from-ahead home ties with tenth-ranked Minnesota on November 7 and 8. Fuller and Stivers scored in each end of the series. A number of tight non-conference results followed to further bolster LU–B's ranking: 2–1 and 3–1 losses to No. 3 Adrian, a 3–2 loss to subsequent No. 3 Miami (in stark contrast to the first games in team history), and a 4–2 victory over No. 4 Grand Valley State on January 24, behind two Dietmeier goals and 47 Bidois saves.
Back in the WWCHL, the Lynx found themselves as league frontrunners by late in the season, with the ties against Minnesota the only blemishes on their conference record. The Gophers, meanwhile, along with usual contenders Colorado and Colorado State, had all taken losses along the way. LU–B's shutout win over the Buffaloes on third-period goals by Stivers, Dietmeier and NCAA Division III transfer Hayley Winker at the end of January clinched the WWCHL regular season championship, the first conference title in program history.
Despite entering the league playoffs in Boulder, Colorado as the top seed, the Lynx were instantly humbled by a staggering 7–0 loss to host Colorado to open things up. Fortunately for LU–B, a new pool-based playoff format offered a respite, and the team bounced back that evening to defeat Midland and advance to the semifinals. The standard airtight 60 minutes between the Lynx and Gophers followed, with LU–B getting the final word in the season series and holding on late for a 3–2 victory on the strength of goals by Winker, Fuller and Nikole Day. The redemption story was completed with a 2–1 championship game victory over the Buffaloes to win both the league title and an autobid to the ACHA National Tournament. The win largely owed itself to 36 saves by Bidois, who was named MVP of the playoffs, while Stivers and Katie Lakusta joined her on the first all-tournament team.
As the sixth seed entering nationals, Lindenwood–Belleville was thrown in a four-team pool with plenty of familiarity in the form of top-seeded Liberty and No. 3 Grand Valley State, with a new opponent, No. 8 Michigan, mixed in. However, the Lynx saw a quick end to their title hopes after dropping results to the Lakers and Flames. Despite the loss and elimination, the meeting with Liberty stood as one of the most exciting games of the tournament. The defending national champs took a 3–1 lead in the second period on a Jickling natural hat trick, but Winker and Fuller struck to get LU–B back even early in the third period. Liberty then took leads of 4–3 and 6–4, but a resilient Lynx squad had quick answers by Dietmeier and Haley Hill. The six-goal third period ended one shy on the LU–Belleville side though, as the Flames held on for a 6–5 win. The Lynx did manage to close out their time at the tourney on a high note, rallying from a 4–1 hole after one period to pick up a stirring 6–4 win over Michigan, the program's first ever at ACHAs.
2016–17
With 2015–16 marking Lindenwood–Belleville's transition from "new" to "contender," the 2016–17 campaign presented its fair share of expectations, although its schedule proved difficult in more than one way. The Lynx went 9–5–2 over the first half of the season, a solid record made even more impressive by the fact that eight of the 16 contests came against No. 1 Miami, No. 7 Grand Valley State, No. 8 Colorado and No. 1 Liberty. While LU–B mostly struggled in those outings with a 1–5–2 record, the win was a huge one: a come-from-behind 4–2 result at Liberty on December 3, the Flames' first ACHA loss at their home LaHaye Ice Center since Rhode Island upended LU on November 16, 2014 (the unbeaten stretch spanned 20 games). Liberty jumped out to an early 2–0 lead, but the Lynx surged over the second and third periods behind goals from Stivers, Dietmeier, Fuller and Millar. That victory, combined with the closeness of the losses against top teams, allowed LU–B to remain sturdy in the rankings, as they never dropped below eighth during the year.
On February 18, 2017, the Lynx participated in USA Hockey's National Continuous Game, held in conjunction with the IIHF Girls' Global Game. The Girls' Global Game involved 44 national federations worldwide hosting one-hour games in succession over the weekend of February 17 through 19th, while the concurrent USA Hockey event spotlighted girls' and women's hockey at different levels on American soil. LU-B won their segment of the National Continuous Game by a 2–1 count at Minnesota on a pair of Fuller goals. The win, coupled with a victory against Wisconsin later that night, clinched LU–Belleville's second straight WWCHL regular season title.
The National Continuous Game was part of an extremely dense scheduling stretch linking the end of the regular season and the WWCHL playoffs, beginning with a three-game sweep of Colorado State from February 10 through 12th. The subsequent weekend in Minnesota included four games over three days with the Gophers and Badgers, while the playoffs also included four games in three days - a grand total of 11 games over 17 days between February 10 and 26. That reality, arguably, took its toll on the Lynx at playoffs, with a disappointing (in light of the three consecutive regular season or playoff titles to that point) third-place finish following a 5–1 loss to Colorado in the semifinals.
Nevertheless, in contrast to previous seasons, LU–B had built up enough status nationally to survive the blow and qualify for the ACHA National Tournament in Columbus, Ohio by finishing fifth in the rankings (three spots ahead of WWCHL playoff champion Minnesota, as things turned out) and drawing a pairing with No. 4 Massachusetts for a best-of-three quarterfinal, under a new tournament format. Things started well enough for the Lynx, as the Minutemen had to forfeit game one of the series thanks to Winter Storm Stella and related travel difficulties. UMass, however, showed up for games two and three both literally and figuratively, and managed to flip the series in their favor and advance to the semifinals with 7–3 and 4–2 wins. Alicia Williams, a freshman from Minnesota, scored twice at nationals, while Megan Lugar grabbed a second team all-tournament nod.
2017–18