New Ulm and St. Peter tied as Champions of their conference last season. Luverne won its conference last year. Those three teams look to be the preseason favorites. New Ulm off to a great start against Worthington scoring a whopping 13 goals. Luverne also started with a lopsided win against Waseca.
St. Peter travels to Luverne in the first big clash of the new Big South Conference on Friday. St. Peter has not been quiet in the media with their desire to win the conference. Ill post a few Excerpts below.
The following questions were asked in a Q&A session with some of the bulldogs players before the season started.“Last season we were able to tie for the conference championship with New Ulm,” Swanberg said. “This season we would like to be more selfish and just win it outright.
“The conference will be a lot different this season with the addition of Luverne, Marshall, Windom, Worthington and Redwood Valley to go along with Fairmont, Waseca and New Ulm.
“Luverne will be the favorite in the conference and teams like us, New Ulm and Marshall will also be strong contenders.
.What are your team goals?
Wenner: We talked about it. We are one of the top three teams in our section, I believe. I think our team goal is to get down to Rochester and play in the section finals, if not make state. With the new conference, Luverne is going to be a tough team, but I think we can beat them to win conference.
Zallek: First and foremost, take a run at the new conference in the Big South. Last year we split with rival New Ulm, which was great for us. It would be great to take both those games. And avenge our playoff loss last year to West. If we can stay smart, we’ve got a lot of returning guys, we should make a run for state
The following quotes were in reference to their opening game with Austin in which St. Peter won 4-1.
Think they're fired up for friday? It sure seems like it. It will be a great game in Luverne and the BMIA will be packed and bumpin.“It definitely wasn’t a pretty game,” Bulldog forward Brett Zallek said. “We took way too many penalties. It was fortunate that we didn’t start against Luverne. It was a good start to the season before we face Luverne next week in a tough match-up.”
“Obviously disappointed in the number of penalties that we took in this game,” Bulldogs coach Dave Swanberg said. “This early in the season we have not had a lot of time to work on the power play and penalty kill. This will be an area we will spend a great deal of time working on in practice this next week before we travel to Luverne.”
The Bulldogs next travel to Luverne at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 28 and to Worthington the following noon. Luverne was originally scheduled to be the season opener, but the Austin game was rescheduled from Dec. 9.
“We’ve got plenty to work on,” Zallek said. “This is the beginning of the year. But we came out with a W, so we’re happy with that.”
Oh, and I think the Cards will be ready for their home opener. They haven't lost in their barn since early December of 2012.
