Saint Peter High School

Congrats to the members of the Minnesota River Bulldogs’ varsity girls hockey team for being named as Minnesota Class A State Academic and Section 2A Academic team champion with an impressive cumulative team GPA of 3.989! The award is given out each season by the Minnesota High School Girls Hockey Coaches Association.

These honors come on top of an already successful season that saw the Bulldogs amass a school-record 21-7-1 overall record and the first-ever Section 2A championship game appearance.

“We’ve now won this award in two of the past three seasons,” Dustin Swanson, the Bulldogs’ head coach, said. “What an awesome accomplishment! We have some special kids in this group for sure.”

Each year the Minnesota Girls Hockey Coaches Association honors Academic Team Champions, and Individual Academic All State winners. Section Team Champions are chosen based on the team's GPA of the top 12 students from each team.  The top teams from each section are then compared to determine the Class A and Class AA State Team Champions. Individual Academic All-State is awarded to any player who is a senior who has a cumulative GPA of 3.8 or above including the current grading term.

In addition to the state and section team awards, according to Swenson, Minnesota River also had five named as Academic All-State (seniors only) individually - Annika Magelee, Macey Portner, Emma Volk-Kleschult, Kaylee Gogert, and Claire Hathaway. 

Bulldog varsity team members from Saint Peter High School included the following:

Seniors - Macey Portner, Annika Magelee, Emma Volk-Kleschult, and managers Julie Weber and Nichole Garcia.

Juniors - Noelle Simonette and Piper Winters.

Sophomores - Maren Swenson.

Freshmen - Payton Fredrickson.

(PICTURED ABOVE) Members of the 2025-26 MN River Bulldogs girls hockey team includes: front row (l to r), manager Daisy Tietz, Zoe Hettig, Kaylee Gogerty, Shaylan Dunphy, Macey Portner, Annika Magelee, Emma Volk-Kleschult, Claire Hathaway, Cristina Cruz, Aubrey Heller, manager Julie Weber; middle row, Nichole Garcia, Harper Doyen, Kelcie Weydert, Maren Swenson, Noelle Simonette, McKenna Andresen, Piper Winters, Rhyan Bishop, Thea Braun, Amelia Miller, head coach Dustin Swenson, assistant coach Lindsay Paschke; back row, assistant coaches Reegan Reehm and Dave Swanberg, Kacey Hollerich, Mara Von Bank, Olivia Haider, Alli Andresen, Payton Fredrickson, Reese Rehm, Sophie Tews, and Mia Hettig.