Last season, Ann-Frederique Guay was skating for the Division III Norwich University Cadets in Vermont and was their leading scorer en route to a first team All-American berth.
Now she is lacing up her skates for the University of Maine Black Bears and is proving she can light the goal lamp at the Division I level, too.
The graduate student center has scored 12 goals in 16 games and also has four assists for 16 points. Her four power play goals lead the team and tie her for sixth in the country among 44 Division I schools.
Her .75 goals per game is tied for 10th in the nation.
UMaine head coach Molly Engstrom hasn’t been surprised by Guay’s success.
“She is a special person and a special player,” Engstrom said. “The work she has put in has been unbelievable.”
The Black Bears have won four in a row to improve to 8-8 overall and 6-6 in Hockey East. Four of their losses have been by a goal.
“We just want to keep winning,” said Guay, whose Black Bears will take on ECAC team Dartmouth College at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Guay entered the NCAA transfer portal following her senior year at Norwich and Engstrom watched video of her play for the Cadets.
“She could clearly score goals. She scored a lot of them at Norwich,” Engstrom said.
Guay scored fifty-eight of them, to be exact.
She also had 63 assists for 121 points in 90 games. She was a two-time All-American, including her first-team berth last year when she had 19 goals and 27 assists in 29 games.
“Playing Division I has always been my goal,” said Guay, a native of St-Lambert-de-Lauzon, Quebec. “As a fifth-year student, it was a good opportunity for me to reach that goal. I was talking to a couple other schools but I really enjoyed the way [Engstrom] sees things and how much emphasis she puts on little details and how much everything matters.”
When Guay spoke with Engstrom in April, the UMaine coach outlined the areas of Guay’s game she needed to work on. And she suggested that Guay spend the summer in Orono working out with former UMaine sports performance coach Phil Currier.
“I was very grateful for the opportunity and excited to come in and work,” said Guay, who also skated every day when she wasn’t working with Currier.
It also gave her a chance to familiarize herself with the area and the athletic staff.
“It was very helpful. It made it so much easier than if I had come in at the end of summer,” she said.
Guay had been a winger in prep school and at Norwich but Engstrom asked her to move to center, where she had played in her younger days.
“I was pretty nervous about it at the beginning. But all I wanted to do was play and the transition has been going pretty well,” Guay said. “I forgot how much fun it was to play center.”
She has been on a line with graduate student right wing Ida Kuoppala, who leads the team in scoring with 14 goals and 7 assists. Senior Rahel Enzler (4 & 12) had been on their line and now sophomore Ava Stevenson (1 goal, 5 assists) is with them.
“[Guay] has done a good job,” Engstrom said. “She has good vision and a good hockey IQ. She has a quick release on her shot. She can deliver the puck and she’s a team player. She forechecks hard and backchecks hard. She does everything right.”
Kuoppala is tied for third in the country in goals per game (.88) and in game-winning goals with four.
Enzler is now on a line with Mira Seregely (2 & 4) and Alyssa Wruble (3 & 5).
“They like to play together. They were together last year. Things are going pretty well for them,” Engstrom said.
An all-freshman line features Lily Fetch (2 & 4) at center between Raegen Wurm (1 & 0) and Mikayla Boarder (1 & 2). They are a disciplined line that can shut down any line they play against, Engstrom said.
Freshman Haley Ryan (3 & 2) centers the fourth line between Sam Morrison (0 & 2) and Abby Latorella (0 & 2). Bria Holm and Lila Shea, who haven’t registered a point yet, have also played a handful of games.
Senior Elise Morphy (0 & 4) anchors the defense corps and is paired with Sophia Johnson (0 & 2). Jamie Grinder (1 & 3) plays with Kennedy Little (0 & 1) and Courtney Colarullo (no points) is on a tandem with freshman Ashley Kokavec (3 & 6). Adriana Van De Leest (1 & 2) and Old Town’s Olivia King (no points) have also seen action on the blue line.
Freshman and St. Cloud University transfer Julia Bachetti (5-4, 2.24 goals-against average, .925 save percentage) has emerged as the No. 1 goalie with seniors Jorden Mattison (2-3, 2.04, .913) and Anna Larose (1-1, 2.52, .906) backing her up.
