Nov. 29, 2006

By Tom Reale, SCSU Graduate Student

They were touted as part of what was widely called the most impressive recruit class in the history of the St. Cloud State program. Their play during the first two months of the season seems to indicate that they deserved every bit of that title.

First year forwards Holly Roberts, Caitlin Hogan, and Meaghan Pezon have not only lived up to the hype, they've become integral cogs in the St. Cloud State attack this season. Heading into the month of December, Roberts leads the Huskies in goals (8) and points (15), Hogan leads the team in assists (8) and is tied for second in points (12, with senior Hailey Clarkson), and Pezon is third on the team in goals (5) to lead what is turning out to be a very exciting freshman class, which has scored goals in 11 of 16 total games this year.

"It feels good to be held in such high regard right from the start," says Hogan of the attention her class has received even before the season began. "We have to keep working hard to justify it though. It helps to have the older girls supporting us and helping us out. They're good role models."

"It's definitely not just us," adds Roberts. "Without the upperclassmen out there pushing us along we wouldn't be successful."

The numbers may show that the three have become very important to the Husky offense, all three downplay their role.

"It's a team," says Pezon. "We need everyone."

"You're always a little timid when you're first coming into a new group as one of the youngest," says Hogan. "You don't know where you fit in at first, but from day one everyone's just been pushing us and pushing us to get better, and that's the main thing that has made us successful."

Ms. Hockey
While they obviously have the scoring touch in common, they also share somewhat common backgrounds: all three forwards are Minnesota natives, all three were named to the All-State team as high school seniors in 2006, and all three were finalists for the Ms. Hockey award ­ the first three players to don the Huskies' uniform to be given the honor. Felicia Nelson, who is redshirting at St. Cloud State this season after transferring from Minnesota State, was a 2005 finalist for the award.

"Pezon and I sat by each other at the banquet," says Roberts. "We had to get up and talk and be interviewed in front of everyone there. That was really difficult for all of us really. That's the one thing that I'll never forget about that experience."

"I giggled through the whole thing," Pezon says about the banquet. "But it was cool to be there. It was an honor."

"It was an honor just to be there," says Hogan. "You grow up through high school hockey and you see all the girls being nominated for Ms. Hockey and how good they are, and you just want to be a part of that. All of a sudden you're there and it's a shock."

Shock and surprise seem to have been the standard reaction to the news that they'd been nominated.

"I think I just picked up a copy of Let's Play Hockey and there was my picture right on it," said Roberts.

"That's what I did!" says Hogan, laughing. "I picked it up, and I was like, 'oh!'"

"They had these big boxes of Let's Play Hockey at Warroad," Roberts said. "I was just looking through one and one of my teammates says 'hey, that's you!'

"I went home and laid it on my counter and went to my room," said Hogan. "Fifteen minutes later I hear 'Caitlin!'"

Ultimately, the award was won by Allie Thunstrom, now at Boston College, who was Hogan's teammate and co-captain at North St. Paul.

Caitlin Hogan
"I started skating when I was two, on a backyard pond," says Hogan. "One of my friends wanted to play hockey when I was five, so I told my parents that I wanted to play too and it really just took off from there.

"It's been a lot of hard work but I've had a lot of opportunities to grow in the game almost from day one."

Along with co-captain Thunstrom, Hogan was a leader for North St. Paul last season, scoring 23 goals and adding 55 assists for 78 points in 28 games, finishing 14th in the state in scoring.

The National Hockey Center was the first draw for Hogan to St. Cloud State, but she quickly found other reasons to find the school attractive.

"When I came up, I just loved the facility," says Hogan. "I loved the fact that there are two Olympic sized sheets of ice here, and I just fell in love with the team. Stacy [Dey, another North St. Paul product] was my 'big sister' for the day I was around, and she brought me around and introduced me to some of the girls and I was just struck by how awesome they all are. Most of all I just love where this team is going in the future and that was something I wanted to be a part of."

Coming in, she didn't know too much about her classmate who would soon become her linemate on the opposite side of the ice.

"I played against Holly a couple times but I didn't really know her until this past summer. We played on different teams in a tournament in Vermont and that's where I really got to know her pretty well."

Holly Roberts
Growing up, Roberts got the opportunity to build her experience in the game in different places.

"My brother started playing at about the time I was five," says Roberts. "I was really competitive with him so I wanted to play too. I played in Sauk Rapids until about fifth grade and then my family moved to St. Cloud and I played here until I was a freshman. After that I played in Warroad for the last three years and now here I am back in St. Cloud."

Roberts finished her senior season for Warroad with a state-leading 70 goals and added 30 assists for a total of 100 points in 29 games, good enough for third state-wide as she led Warroad to the Class A championship game.

St. Cloud State was always high on her list of schools she was interested in.

"St. Cloud is home for me," says Roberts. "I knew the campus, I knew the town, and I pretty much just liked everything about what I saw when I came to visit."

The setting was familiar, but she admits that she didn't know as much about her future teammates at first.

"I knew who Pezon was," says Roberts. "I saw her play in the state tournament a couple of times but I didn't really get to know either of them until we all knew we were coming here together."

Meaghan Pezon
"I started playing when I was five," says Pezon. "From there I just worked my way up through. I played at Eden Prairie all the way through my senior year."

In that senior season, Pezon produced a balanced attack, scoring 43 goals and adding 47 assists for 90 points over 31 games, placing her seventh in the state in scoring.

Pezon's experience with St. Cloud through high school hockey ended up directing her to SCSU in more ways than one.

"I always enjoyed coming up here for sectionals," says Pezon. "I always thought it would be a nice place not only to play hockey but to go to school. When I was a junior, [Megan] McCarthy was a senior and she told me, 'well, I think I'm going to go to St. Cloud,' so I said, 'well, I guess I'll join you next year.'"

Pezon is actually part of a growing lineage of Eden Prairie grads to come to St. Cloud State. Three seasons ago, Pezon and McCarthy were teammates with defenseman Brittni Kuyper at Eden Prairie High School. Today, all three are Huskies.

"In high school, McCarthy and I played really well together, but we haven't really had the chance to play together here yet, so it's hard to say whether that experience is something that we can carry over to this level."

Her high school teammates were not the only Huskies with whom Pezon had playing experience.

"Caitlin and I have played on the same summer team for the past three years," says Pezon, "so we knew each other well before we both ended up coming to St. Cloud."

It hasn't taken long for Pezon to develop a well-earned reputation on the team ­ she may already have the hardest slapshot in the history of the program, and Holly Roberts certainly attests to that.

"By far," Roberts says. "In practice I took one of her shots right in the facemask and it had so much on it that I just dropped right to the ice. It dented the mask!"

"I don't want to be in front of that," says Hogan. "I'm pretty sure most people on the team don't want to be anywhere near it."

Pezon attributes her shot strength to a childhood method for anger management.

"When I'd get angry I'd just go into the driveway and start shooting pucks," she said. "When I was a junior my dad actually threatened to take some money out of my savings account to pay for a new garage door."

Scoring Spark
For much of the season, Hogan and Roberts have been a part of the team's top scoring line, and as their statistics show, they've certainly earned the position. Meanwhile, Pezon has established herself as a scoring threat as well, helping to give the Huskies that extra edge that teams need ­ depth between lines.

Roberts began the season by collecting a goal in each of her first two games as a Husky, then scoring again against Bemidji State before netting four during a weekend series at Vermont, including her first career hat-trick in the second game of the series ­ a natural hat-trick, with each goal coming in the third period, taking only 6:02 to score all three, with the last one coming short-handed and unassisted to boot.

Pezon's first goal came in the Huskies' second game of the season, at home against Robert Morris. Her second goal came against the always difficult Wisconsin Badgers, and in the very next game at Bemidji State, she had her first two-goal effort.

Hogan got her first career assist by passing the puck off to Holly Roberts on her first career goal, then collected her second by passing off to Meaghan Pezon for her first career goal. She would finally dent the twine herself in the Huskies' sixth game, in Bemidji, later putting up a goal in each game against Vermont.

Vanguard
All three were beneficiaries of the rapid development and growth of girls' hockey in Minnesota during their youth.

"The women's game is definitely getting better overall," says Roberts of the game's growth during her primary school days. "Starting in eighth grade playing for the girls' varsity team to my senior year, it was way different. There's no more taking the puck from one end to the other anymore."

"We all started out playing with the boys," adds Hogan of her early experience, a sentiment which Roberts and Pezon immediately agreed with. "It's a huge difference. It taught us to keep our feet moving and keep our heads up. All three of us have speed, and I know I personally owe that to the time I spent playing against the boys."

Still, the jump to the college level isn't all that easy.

"Everyone's smarter at this level," says Hogan. "Everyone's quicker and stronger."

"Everyone's better," Roberts quickly interjects. "You have to be on every time, you can't have bad days. It was different in high school, when everyone would look to you to do everything ­ score the goals, make the plays. Now you look around and everyone was the goal scorer in high school, everyone was the captain. On the same token, now everyone has the skills, so you aren't worried as much as to whether they're going to receive the pass or not, all you have to worry about is your own game."

All three are well aware of deficiencies in their games that need to be improved upon.

"I know I'm not strong enough yet," says Roberts. "I work on it every day, but at the same time I know I don't want to just bulk up, I want to be able to keep my speed, too, so I'm trying to find the best balance still."

"I need to work on my shot consistency," says Hogan. "Some days it's on, some days it's off, and I need it to be on more often. Keeping the speed up is also important to me. You can never stop working on your speed, because if you ignore it for even a little bit it's going to go downhill."

"I want to get quicker," says Pezon. "Not so much as far as skating but reacting and moving quicker ­ quicker passes, quicker shots. You need that in order to succeed at this level because everything just happens more quickly and you need to speed up your actions after you've made a decision."

The early-season schedule definitely was not easy to get through ­ the team has already had difficult games against the traditional "top 3" in the WCHA of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Minnesota Duluth.

"I thought it was so weird playing the Gophers," says Hogan. "When you're a kid growing up in Minnesota you always kinda idolize the people wearing the big 'M', but now - no. Not anymore. You have to have respect for them, but only to a certain extent."

"Going into that game I don't think I wanted to beat anyone more," said Roberts. "We wanted to show them that they're not the big team in Minnesota anymore. I still hope we can do that down the road."

"All of those games were very intense," says Pezon, who scored goals against Wisconsin and Minnesota. "You learn things in those games that you can take into games against other teams that aren't as good."

"We started to see some of our potential during those games," Hogan added. "You see how good you are and how good you can be."

These first year players aren't satisfied with personal success. They all feel ready to take the next step ­ as a team.

"If we keep working like we've been working and we keep progressing like we have been in practice and take it to games, we'll be hard to beat," says Hogan. "We're already a very good team, solid all the way through, we just have to make sure we have all the parts of our game clicking for sixty minutes every time we go out."

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