Heading into his second season at the helm and coming off a national championship game loss in March, Elmira College women’s hockey head coach Greg Haney is excited to run it back this season, knowing what this year’s group is capable of.
One could argue the only thing harder than winning a championship is losing one. With last year’s chapter now closed, Haney had a good summer and expects his team to be “dialed in and focused. You get a little taste of it and now you want the whole thing, you want to get back. With the additions of 11 new players and some fresh blood in the locker room, we have enough returners who know how to get us back to that point.”
A new face on the bench this year for the Soaring Eagles is Jimmy Poreda. Poreda, a former goalie in the SPHL and ECHL, will “help with the goaltending and has a defensive background, too.”
Replacing the production of a national championship runner-up team is hard, but Haney believes in “the natural progression of our players. Anna Lugge ’27 is going to have a big year. So is McKenzie Schmidt ’25. We have Erika Goleniak ’25 coming back, she’s an All-American and it’s nice to have her back for another year. MK Boyle ’26 is pushing the brink, too. Emily Lenzen ’24 and a couple of the new faces should be able to produce as well. So if everybody continues to step up and do their job, losing those top players, year by year shouldn’t be as much of an impact. But it is hard to replace the people who have been in the program for five years who just know the game so well.”
Similar to the men’s team, the women have dominated play on home ice in previous years and went 12-1-1 at the Muray Athletic Center last year. According to Haney, “This team just takes pride in winning at home. There’s the fans, the atmosphere. You have to be good at home if you’re going to win games. You just can’t lose in your own home and they take pride in that.”
Another area of their game the Soaring Eagles take pride is the penalty kill. “The PK is one of the areas we do take pride in. I’d like it to be a little bit higher if possible. If we could get it up to 93% or 94%, that’d be ideal. Hopefully we’re not in the box as much as we were last year, but the penalty kill is something that we take pride in,” Haney said.
The third and final similarity between the men and women this year is the adjustment to the new schedule format. Instead of playing two different teams on back-to-back nights, the Soaring Eagles will play the same team both nights when conference play begins. Haney is excited for the change, “To our game, it’ll help us evolve quicker throughout the season. You have to make adjustments and change night-to-night throughout the season. Hopefully, we can stay one step ahead of these teams and make those changes on a Friday. It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure.”
Looking at first-year players who could make an early impact, Haney named Gaby Matson ’28 for her size and skating, Savannah Barber ’28, also her size, and Annie Audet ’28 for always being composed on the ice and making the right play. Haney also went on to say that a couple years down the road, he sees more names joining them
“Our backend’s a little bit different this year. We have a little bit different dynamic. We got three transfers that came in and a freshman too, so that experience we’re getting between the three of them is a lot of games at different levels. One from Norwich, so Emma Morel ’26 is familiar with our league and two more who played some pretty high competition in the past. We hope that levels out once they get comfortable, but that comfort is going to take a little of time to come, I’m sure,” Haney explained of his new-look blue line after losing seniors Lexi Hoffman ’24 and Madi Morton ’24.
Joining Alayna Toole ’26 as alternate captains this season are Sophie Compeau ’25 and Lenzen. Haney says that “Leadership is our strong suit with this group. They’re great but I’m sure they still look for advice in certain situations but they do a good job, day to day, as the people that they are. All three of them are so different. Alayna was unanimous. For everybody to come in and say they want her as captain made our decision pretty easy. It’s just how she carries herself on a day-to-day basis. She’s a competitor. She works so hard every single day. And she cares about all of her teammates. Sophie Compeau, same thing. She’s a worker. She’s a little bit more vocal on that side, but she’s very consistent in everything that she does. Emily Lenzen is the same way. You know what you’re going to get with her. She’s the first one on the ice every day. She’s not overly talkative but she leads by example not only on the ice with her compete level, but also off the ice. It’s interesting when they work together, it might take 24 hours before a decision but it’s always a good one because all different angles are considered,” Haney said.
In net for the Soaring Eagles and returning for her fourth season in the purple and gold is Leonie-Louise Kuehberger ’25. Kuehberger is already the program’s leader in career shutouts and figures to have her name all over the record books if all goes according to plan this season. Haney expects transfer Emily Finach ’25 to challenge Kuehberger for time in net while also hoping to see Shira Wein ’27 and Sara Sevcikova ’28 push for time in the crease as well. Haney admits “It is Leonie’s net right now but Emily wants to be in there so it’ll be a fun little competition internally and I think that’s good for goaltenders.”
Technique-wise, Poreda thinks Kuehberger is a “big save goalie. She’s shown that she’s capable of making big saves moving side-to-side. Right now, we’re working on depth management and being able to read the game a bit better so she doesn’t have to make those big saves. But she’s been impressive so far.”
Haney’s first-ranked Soaring Eagles take the ice tonight in Wilkes, PA to open their season. Find the rest of the schedule here.
