Wisconsin women's hockey nearly sweeps final HCA monthly awards

The Wisconsin Badgers women's hockey team nearly came away with a clean sweep in the final Hockey Commissioners Association monthly awards.

Kelly Gorbatenko, Adela Sapovalivova, and Ava McNaughton were all named monthly award winners.

Wisconsin capped off the 2025-26 season by winning its second straight National Championship. Without those three players, Mark Johnson knows that it would've never been a possibility.

Gorbatenko's hat trick over Quinnipiac proved to be more than enough to land her Player of the Month. She had at least one point in every game during the month of March and won the award over Quinnipiac's Kahlen Lamarche and Penn State's Tessa Janecke.

Sapovalivova outlasted Penn State's Matilde Fantin to take home the final Rookie of the Month award. She assisted on two of the Badgers' three goals in their National Championship victory over Ohio State.

Finally, McNaughton was part of a trio of goalies that shared "Women's Tri-Goalies of the Month". The award is still impressive as no one else in that group can say they were the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament. She was the fourth Badger to do so as her monthly honors were split with Connecicut's Tia Chan and Quinnipiac's Felicia Frank.

The only award Wisconsin failed to get its hands on was Defender of the Month. Similar to the goalie situation, a pair of players were named "Co-Defenders" of the month. Those two just so happened to be Ohio State's Emma Peschel and Yale's Molly Boyle.

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