The St. Thomas women’s hockey team will travel to New York this weekend to play No. 1-ranked Plattsburgh State in the NCAA quarterfinals.

The game will be a rematch of last year’s national semifinal in which the Cardinals defeated the Tommies 1-0 in overtime. Plattsburgh went on to win the NCAA championship with a 9-2 victory against Norwich University. Goaltender Taylor Neisen said the team is eager to return to New York to take on the Cardinals once more.

“It’s a huge revenge game for us,” Neisen said. “We’re really looking forward to giving it our all.”

Plattsburgh is coming off a 4-0 win over Elmira College in the Eastern College Athletic Conference West championship Sunday, while St. Thomas won the MIAC championship with a 3-2 comeback victory against Bethel Saturday. Neisen said although the Tommies may be the underdogs, momentum is on their side.

“It’s been kind of an up and down season for us,” Neisen said. “Over the last two weeks we’ve really come together. I guess we’ve really found ourselves.”

Forward Karina Marette agreed and said the team has never been more inspired.

“We definitely have momentum coming off our last three wins. It’s huge for our confidence and motivation,” Marette said.

Overall, the Cardinals have outscored opponents 136-40 this season. Forward Kayla Meneghin is Plattsburgh’s leading scorer with 46 points this season. Neisen said St. Thomas hopes its focus all season will help it nullify Plattsburgh’s offensive firepower.

“Throughout this entire year we’ve been focused on working from the back of our net out and having a pretty strong defensive team,” Neisen said.

Marette said confidence is not an issue for the Tommies.

“They had a great crowd there last time,” Marette said. “We would love to go back there and show all their fans that we can beat them.”