After the retirement of head coach and Orono High School math teacher Kevin Armstrong, the girls hockey team is starting off with a whole new coaching staff. The head coaching job has been taken over by former Blake girls hockey coach Keith Radloff.

Radloff is not completely new to Orono, as he was part of the first girls hockey coaching staff. After that, he coached the Blake girls hockey team for 10 years. He has coached various Elite hockey teams and Wayzata 14 and under hockey teams for the past eight years.

Radloff stated he hopes to bring “consistency and stability to the program.” He anticipates Mound and Rogers to be the teams big competitors in their conference along with Breck, and his former team, Blake during sections.

Not only is the coaching staff new, but a lot of the team is as well. Although only three seniors graduated last year, this years team will be made up of a lot of young talent. “Last years seniors were really good and obviously we will have to fill a huge void that they left, but we have a lot of good players that can step up and handle it,” said senior captain Tori Wilson.

Wilson, along with seniors Millie Luedtke and Kaylie Grochowski, make up the captains of this years Orono varsity girls hockey team. As for goals for the season, the state tournament is on every teammate’s mind. “I wanna take our season further than we ever have,” said Wilson.

Last year, the team’s season was ended by an upsetting loss to Blake in the second round of the section tournament. Grochowski, Luedtke and Wilson all agree that their biggest competition to get to state will be defeating Breck and Blake.

With tryouts and team selections just being wrapped up, the team is already ahead of where they were when their season ended. “Everyone this summer worked really hard, so we are already improving upon where we left off last year,” said Grochowski.

The teams record last year was 16-7-1 finishing second in the Wright Country Conference behind Mound.

“We need to work on our defensive zone and get more pucks in the net,” said Luedtke. Luedtke ended the season as the leading scorer last year with 38 points.

Radloff agrees that although the team has a lot of young players, they have the ability and potential to be a great team. “They just need to have confidence in their own abilities regardless of who they are playing,” stated Radloff.

The team’s first home game is Nov. 25 at the Orono Ice Arena at 7:00 p.m. against Albert Lea.

Stephanie Urness is the news editor for The Spartan Speaks.