Page 10 Lake Conference Hockey • Thursday, December 11, 2025 sailor. mnsun. com
MAPLE GROVE CRIMSON GIRLS HOCKEY
Lake Conference Hockey
Bringing young talent to another conference
JOHN SHERMAN john. sherman @ apgecm. com
Maple Grove’ s girls hockey team has only four seniors on the roster this season, but that has not stopped the Crimson from posting a 6-1-0 record through the first seven games.
Among those games were back-to-back triumphs over Lake Conference opponents from Hopkins / St. Louis Park and Eden Prairie.
Junior captain Hadley Bakker is one of the players to watch in the Lake this season. She scored two goals against Hopkins / St. Louis Park and added two more against Eden Prairie.
The other captain for the Crimson, also a junior, is defenseman Fiona Gallagher.
Maple Grove head coach Jim Koltes is excited about the Crimson’ s move to the Lake Conference this season even though he also liked his team’ s former conference, the Northwest Suburban.
“ The Northwest Suburban Conference has been an awesome conference to compete in with so many solid teams. Playing there has more than prepared us as we move to the Lake Conference.”
Several young teams have competed for Lake titles in the past, and if Maple Grove wins this season it might be one of the youngest champions ever. Koltes, a former Armstrong High hockey player,
( SUN PHOTO BY JOHN SHERMAN)
Captains of the Maple Grove girls hockey team for the 2025-26 season are junior defenseman Fiona Gallagher( left) and junior forward Hadley Bakker.
is in his 27th season as a head high school hockey coach. He is also a 25-year head coach of the Maple Grove fastpitch softball team.
While the Crimson is light on players in the senior class, a deep junior class makes up for that.
Coach Koltes’ expectations are:“ To compete in the Lake Conference, get to the section final and then the state tournament.”
Competition in the Lake Conference will come from defending league champion Minnetonka and Edina, the runner-up in the State Class AA Tournament last winter. Wayzata might be the most improved team in the conference with most of its key players returning from last season.
Koltes listed these girls as his key returnees from the 2024-25 roster:“ Goalie Bella Prosser, defensemen Fiona Gallagher, Maisy Tomlinson, Maddie Elfstrand and Cali Anderson, defenseman / forward Ava Koshire and forwards Hadley Bakker, Cate Fischer, Abbie Benson, Kate Black and Harper Wieneke.
Bakker was the team’ s second leading scorer last season with 25 points on 11 goals and 14 assists. Fischer was right behind Bakker with 23 points on eight goals and 15 assists. Even more scoring is back with Tomlinson( 9-13-22) and Wieneke( 9-8-17).
The Crimson were not a high-scoring team last season, averaging just under three goals per game. Still, that production was good enough for an overall season record of 17-8-3.
Maple Grove’ s key to success last year was great goaltending from Prosser along with a good overall defensive effort. The Crimson held their opponents to 1.68 goals per game.
Prosser had statistics on a par with any of the state’ s top goalies. She had an 8-16-3 record and played a staggering 1.394 minutes. Her personal goals-against average was 1.61 and she posted a save percentage of. 935, the best in the Northwest Suburban Conference.
Koltes is proud of the past achievements of the Maple Grove girls hockey program.
“ It starts with a
MEET THE
Crimson
1 – Junior goalie Bella Prosser 2 – Junior forward Hadley Bakker 6 – Junior forward Ashley Dorn 8 – Junior forward Taylor Soukup 11 – Sophomore forward Hadley Kustermann 12 – Junior defenseman Ava Koshire 16 – Junior defenseman Maddie Elfstrand 17 – Ninth-grade forward Isla Smith 19 – Ninth-grade forward Ada Goettl 22 – Sophomore forward Abby Petersen 23 – Junior forward Harper Wieneke 24 – Junior defenseman Fiona Gallagher 25 – Junior forward Cate Fischer 26 – Junior defenseman Cali Anderson 27 – Senior forward Kate Black 28 – Senior forward Abbie Benson 31 – Senior goalie Alexa Hadley 33 – Junior defenseman Maisy Tomlinson 34 – Ninth-grade forward Maggie Gifford 39 – Senior forward April Watson
fantastic youth program( Osseo-Maple Grove Hockey Association),” he said.“ We are given a lot of nice players out of the youth program, from there it is the players’ dedication through outside training and training on their own to take the next steps to help them separate themselves from all of the players. We believe the program has a strong culture and consistent play withing what we are trying to do, night in and night out, as one of the last steps.”
The Maple Grove players know the school’ s hockey tradition and are anxious to add to it this season. This season’ s Lake
Conference schedule has Maple Grove playing Hopkins / St. Louis Park one time and the other six conference teams – Buffalo, Eden Prairie, Edina, Minnetonka, St. Michael-Albertville and Wayzata – twice each.
Crimson fans should circle two dates on the conference calendar. The Crimson host Edina at 7 p. m. Thursday, Dec. 18, at Maple Grove Community Center. Another big home game on the last day of the regular season, Saturday, Jan. 31, offers another great match-up at the community center rink with Maple Grove playing Minnetonka.