The Glenbrook Women’s Hockey team, which is composed of GBN, GBS and Regina players, will be facing off against Loyola at the United Center for the State Championship today at 3:30.

According to junior Maddie Itagaki, the Glenbrooks have played Loyola four times, losing once, winning twice and tying the game once. According to sophomore Lily Cataldo, their only loss this season was against Loyola, but the last time the two faced off, The Glenbrooks won 6-1.

“Yes, absolutely [they pose a challenge],” Cataldo said. “They won state last year and they have a lot of strong players. We have been battling back and forth throughout the season, but we did beat them for the league championship.”

According to sophomore Shannon Schmitt, Loyola’s goalie has been injured and they want to use that to their advantage if the goalie is not playing during the game.

“We aren’t sure if they are going to have their goalie during the game because she injured herself a while back, healed up, and injured herself again, so we don’t know if she will be in net,” Schmitt said. “If she isn’t, [that will be an advantage] because she is one of the top goalies in the state [and she is] really good, so if she’s not in net, that would help us a lot and [it would] be easier to score.”

Cataldo believes that since they’ve played Loyola so many times, it helps their coaches make the smartest matchups on the ice and the team knows exactly what they need to do in order to win.

“We have to come out hard from the start of the game and keep the energy high the entire game,” Cataldo said. “We can’t waste any time or [Loyola] will take advantage of that. We need to play our game and not let [Loyola] dictate how we play. And we need to get lots of shots because you can’t score if you don’t shoot.”

According to Schmitt, half of the team has been very confident that they will win, while the other half is really excited just to be there and to play their best. Schmitt also noted that head coach Steve Hamelin has been encouraging them to do their best.

“He’s been telling us not to go into the game with a ‘we are gonna win’ mentality, to just go out there and play our best game,” Schmitt said. “We are not going to go out there and know we are going to win, so the best thing to do is go out there and play our best.”

According to Cataldo, she hopes that looking back on the game, the team feels like they left everything on the ice. Schmitt agreed with Cataldo and also hopes that they have fun at the game while taking control of this opportunity.

“Any experience playing on a team is great in general, but this team, I feel like we have gotten really close,” Schmitt said. “And I hope to take away that whether we win or lose, [when I] look back on this team, [I’ll] remember how fun it was playing on a team that went this far.”