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After joining the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team as a walk-on last season, Bible has been part of back-to-back NCAA championship teams.
“It’s kind of unreal,” said Bible, a Black River Falls, Wis., native and graduate of Sparta High School. “This year means a little more to me. I didn’t play all that much last year. I had a lot more ice time this year.
“And as a team, it was really cool to win it twice in a row.”
The Badgers (36-1-4) earned their second straight national title last Sunday with a 4-1 victory over Minnesota-Duluth in Lake Placid, N.Y.
As a freshman, Bible had to earn her playing time, but she did see action in 30 of the Badgers’ 41 games.
This year, she played in all 41 games as a regular in the team’s rotation of defensemen.
“My first year, I didn’t even dress at the beginning of the year, but I worked my way in,” Bible said. “This year, I partnered with (senior) Meaghan Mikkelson. We were the second pair (of defensemen) out, and we were the first on the penalty kill.”
As a defensive player, Bible’s scoring chances were limited, but she picked two pretty important games to score her only two goals of the 2006-07 season.
The first came in a 3-0 victory over North Dakota in the WCHA playoffs, a win that put the Badgers in the conference semifinals.
The second came in Badgers’ 3-1 victory over Minnesota in the WCHA title game.
“I’m not really a scorer, so it was pretty cool,” Bible said of her goal in the WCHA championship. “It was kind of lucky. I took a shot and got my own rebound.”
The Badgers exacted some revenge in the victory over Minnesota-Duluth in the national title game. The Bulldogs handed Wisconsin its only loss of the season, a 2-0 setback Nov. 24 at the Kohl Center.
“Duluth is almost a bigger rival than Minnesota on the women’s side,” Bible said. “It was pretty neat to beat Minnesota one year and the Bulldogs the next for the (NCAA) championship.”
On the way to the women’s Frozen Four, Bible and her Wisconsin teammates made some history as they earned a spot in the national semifinals with a 1-0 victory over Harvard in four overtimes — the longest game in the seven-year history of the NCAA women’s tournament.
“That game was just long,” Bible said. “We knew we were going to win, we just kept wondering when.
“In between periods, in the huddle, we would be like ‘This is the last huddle.’ Then we would go to another overtime.”
And just how did Bible celebrate that big win.
“I slept all day Sunday and Monday,” she said.
The trip to the Frozen Four wasn’t the first to Lake Placid for Bible. She had been there for a hockey camp in 2004.
It also wasn’t the first for Badgers women’s coach Mark Johnson, who was the leading scorer on the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that won the gold medal in the “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid.
While Bible said Johnson tried to downplay his return to the Lake Placid, it was something the players were well aware of.
“We knew about it. One of the players had some random guy come up to her with a bunch of (trading) cards of the coach and asked her to get them signed,” Bible said.
“But for the most part, he tries to keep the spotlight off of himself. Although after the (championship) game, he did tell us he picked the same locker room that they won (the gold medal) in.”
At Nationals, Part I: Kim Balduzzi, a 2006 Aquinas High School graduate, is a reserve guard for the NCAA Division II top-ranked Florida Golf Coast women’s basketball team, which is currently participating in the Division II Elite Eight.
The Eagles (34-0) defeated North Dakota 83-64 in the national quarterfinals on Wednesday and defeated Clayton State 61-57 in the semifinals Thursday night.
At Nationals, Part II: Former Logan High School forward Jesse Blackwell is at the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II men’s basketball tournament with his teammates from Des Moines Area Community College.
DMAC dropped its national tournament opener to Mott Community College 69-55 on Wednesday and will play in a consolation round game today against the Community College of Rhode Island.
Record-Breaking Bartels: Former Logan High School girls basketball standout Jenna Bartels closed her career at NCAA Division II Michigan Tech as the school’s all-time leader in 3-point baskets.
Bartels hit her school-record 142nd 3-pointer in the Huskies’ final game of the season, an 80-60 loss to Gannon in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament earlier this month.
Bartels will continue her education in the physical therapy graduate program at UW-La Crosse.
GRISWOLD HONORED: Former West Salem High School baseball player Will Griswold was named player of the week for March 12-18 by the Northern Athletic Conference.
For the week, Griswold, a senior outfielder at Marian College, was 10-for-20 with seven RBI, six runs scored, two doubles, a triple and home run. He is hitting .406 in 10 games this season.
Denis Downey can be reached at (608) 791-8819, or e-mail at denis.downey@lee.net
