BLAINE, Minn. – The No. 10-seeded St. Olaf College women's hockey team led 1-0 after two periods before seventh-seeded Bethel University scored three third-period goals to pick up a 3-1 victory in the first round of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Playoffs on Wednesday evening at Bethel University Arena at the National Sports Center.

In its first playoff game since 2012, St. Olaf (9-17-0) got a shorthanded goal from junior Annika Patterson midway through the second period to take a lead into the third period, but Bethel (8-10-2) got two goals from Lexi DeBace and another from Julia McAlpin. With the win, the Royals advanced to the quarterfinals where they will take on second-seeded Hamline on Saturday evening.

With the game still scoreless, Patterson broke the deadlock with an unassisted shorthanded goal at 9:48 of the second period to give the Oles a 1-0 lead. The goal was her team-leading 10th of the season, making her the first Ole to reach double figures in a season since Jane Vezina '18 had 15 goals in 2018.

Trailing 1-0 with 20 minutes remaining, Bethel tied the game on DeBace's first goal of the night at 5:37 of the third before getting a power-play goal from McAlpin at 15:30 for the eventual game-winning goal. DeBace added an unassisted tally with 1:08 remaining to give the Royals an insurance goal late on.

Senior Ivy Shonka made 33 saves – 18 of which came in the second period – in the loss for St. Olaf, which was outshot by a 36-26 margin in the game. Mallory Tidona – who had shutouts in each of the regular-season meetings between the two programs – recorded a 25-save win between the pipes for Bethel.

St. Olaf entered the season on a 50-game winless streak before winning its first four games of the season as part of a 9-17-0 campaign. The game brought an end to the careers of seniors Emma Boyer, Carolyn Carpenter, Jackie LaFaive, Grace Boswell-Healey, and Ivy Shonka.