BSU Women’s Hockey Beats #13 MSU in Grand Rapids as Bischoff Returns Home

On Saturday, Bemidji State women’s hockey played their series finale against Minnesota State in Grand Rapids as part of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Museum Face-Off Classic, an event aimed at showcasing women’s hockey. The Beavers came into the contest against the 13th-ranked Mavericks with two ranked wins already this season in what could be called foreshadowing.

The Mavericks drew first blood in the middle of the first period, but later, the Beavers’ Carmen Bray fed Izy Fairchild her fourth goal of the season to make it 1-1. The game was still tied in the third when BSU’s Shelby Sandberg stuffed home the game winner, with the final score sitting at 2-1.

BSU goaltender Ava Hills earned Player of the Game honors for her 29 saves.

“So grateful to get that. But at the end of the day, that was a team effort,” she said after Bemidji State’s victory. “We won as a team, we played as a team. Everyone on that team buyed in today, and we earned that. To play here and to actually play in the game and to be on that ice, to represent everything for women’s hockey, is just absolutely amazing, getting to be a part of that change and getting to be a part of that growth.”

The game marked the Beavers’ third ranked win of the season. They’re just the seventh team in the program’s 27-year history to record three or more in a season, and they still have a few games left to play.

Saturday’s game also doubled as a homecoming for Minnesota State’s Mercury Bischoff, who grew up playing for Grand Rapids/Greenway at Yanmar Arena and is the program’s all-time leading scorer. The 2025 Ms. Hockey winner already has 15 goals and six assists as a freshman at Mankato.

Bischoff received a warm welcome from her family, friends, and former teammates.

“It was definitely a lot of nerves going through me, but I was just trying to avoid everything else, kind of just play my game,” she told Lakeland News. “But it was exciting. It was super cool, just an experience that I’ll never forget, you know, memorable, Even especially being able to play with my Mankato team and bring them back to my home ice—nobody gets to say that they can do that. And that’s just something that I’ll always remember.”

Bischoff also spoke about the impact that playing Grand Rapids has on the younger generation. “All these younger youth athletes are watching us, and [we] want to make them be able to watch the game as much as they can and just look up to us. I think that it’s cool for the younger girls to be able to come up north here and experience it, instead of always having to go to the [Twin] Cities or somewhere else.”