JDHS grad Anna Dale nets Offensive Player of the Year as sophomore at Lebanon Valley College

Anna Dale, a 2023 Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé graduate, crushed her sophomore women’s hockey season at NCAA Division III Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania, earning the Middle Atlantic Conference honor of Offensive Player of the Year and propelling the Dutchmen into the semifinals of the MAC tournament.

“As a team we had a really great season,” Dale said. “We had a record-breaking season overall so it was just nice to be successful both individually and as a team…I was honestly really happy about it. Honestly, if you look at my points, too, I only had a few unassisted goals…It was my team that pushed me.”

See also: Anna Dale signs to compete in college hockey

Dale led the nation with 27 goals, 1.04 goals per game and five short-handed goals. She tied for third in DIII with five game-winning goals while ranking fifth with 1.54 points per game and seventh with 40 points. She led the MAC in goals, goals per game, game-winning goals, short-handed goals and hat tricks (3) and was named to the MAC First Team All-Conference.

She led Lebanon Valley players in goals, points, short-handed goals and game-winning goals; tied for first with three power-play goals; was second in assists and fifth in blocks.

She set program records this season for single-season points, single-season goals, single-season game-winning goals and single-season short-handed goals, and is the program’s career leader in points with 51, goals with 34, game-winning goals with seven and short-handed goals with five.

She received the MAC Offensive Player of the Week award three times this season.

Dale credited her teammates for her success.

In Dale’s freshman year, the Dutchmen shuffled their lines a lot, but this year Dale stayed more in a line with the same center who was also her roommate and close friend, Tiffany Anderson.

“So it was really nice,” Dale said. “I feel like it wasn’t just my award, it was kind of shared between us because she had such a big part to play…I was just so happy about it because, yeah, I wanted to be successful but I also feel like coming from Alaska it is almost even cooler because we just don’t have as much resources and availability as people, especially on the East Coast, with hockey have. It is nice to know that for both boys and girls from back home it is possible in Juneau, you just have to work hard for it.”

Although the Dutchmen lost in the semifinals to No. 2 ranked Arcadia University, they were the only team in the conference to beat the eventual tourney champions and top seed Wilkes University during the season.

“We beat them in overtime, which gave us two points, and beat them in regulation, which gave us five total points, and then they got four points (for a late-season win over Lebanon),” Dale said. “We were so close and it was doable. The other thing was in the second semester we lost a defender and had a lot of injuries.”

At the beginning of the season, the Dutchmen had enough forwards for four lines, minus one — meaning Dale would be double shifting, going out every other shift and as the season progressed she would share that duty with her roommate.

“It was getting (to be) a lot,” Dale said. “Then we got more injuries so we had to go to three lines…It is hard to play the ‘what if’ game but it definitely could have been different if we had a full roster. Other teams were consistently rolling four lines but we only had three lines of offense. Towards the end of the season it was getting to us…We were all pretty fatigued and tired. But we were really close.”

Dale is excited for next season as the Dutchmen graduate just three players, and coaches are recruiting.

“It looks like we are in good shape for next season with bodies and just overall,” she said.

Last season as a freshman, Dale was a MAC Second Team All-Conference selection.

“It was definitely a different game because I grew up playing with the boys,” she said. “The NCAA DIII women’s level is a step quicker in the sense that we might not individually be as fast but with team concepts and the overall play of the game it is overall just a bit faster. I had played girls’ hockey a few times my junior and senior year but it was at the tier II level.”

Dale supplemented her high school play as a member of the Idaho Vipers, a USA Hockey Tier II club competing in the Rocky Mountain District, and helped them reach the USA Girls U19 Nationals in Irvine, California, as a senior.

“But that play was slower than my coed team (JDHS Crimson Bears),” she said. “So it was a bit faster when I first got here. So I think just adjusting to the speed and strength was the biggest thing.”

Dale said her adjustments from freshman to sophomore seasons were more internal.

“I didn’t necessarily have a bad freshman season; it just wasn’t as successful as this year,” she said. “I think our team dynamic was really good this year. Everybody wanted to be there and everybody was working hard to win. I think that internally might have pushed me a little bit more and I also think I had a little bit more confidence, not being a freshman. Having a year under my belt and knowing what was ahead of me. And just overall we had a really good team this year so it is obviously easier to be successful offensively if we are not always in our defensive zone.”

In her final weeks of this season, Dale said she was concentrating on shooting to score in practice and that will be more of what she works on through the summer.

“I will really try to pick a spot because obviously I have a little bit more time in practice whereas in a game I have to shoot quicker,” she said. “But if I have the habit of picking a spot and shooting right away I think that will make me more successful. And I always want to try and get stronger and faster so I’ll be working hard in the weight room and making sure I am conditioned entering the season because then I can just work on hockey specific things instead of having to get into shape.”

Dale will make up for the lack of ice in Juneau this summer with Dutchmen team group chats and workouts coaches send, plus the reason she wants to eventually live in Juneau.

“I love the outdoors here,” she said. “So I like to go for runs, do sprints. For me I don’t have a problem with leg strength but I think the conditioning is the biggest aspect. I, for sure, do mountain hikes. There is just so much to do in Juneau that is fun but it is conditioning. I have so much more motivation going for a run in Juneau along the water rather than on a treadmill here. And I can go on trails and stuff and it is just so pretty outside in Juneau.”

Dale would like to pursue hockey to some extent after finishing her final seasons at Lebanon, but realizes how good DI players and national team players are.

She is majoring in nursing and finds that career track fulfilling but daunting as well.

“I guess that will be a decision in my senior year,” she said. “”If I want to still play competitive hockey. I think that would be super cool, a lot of fun, because I don’t think I will be ready to stop in two years so I will just wait it out and see what my options are.”

Next season she also begins her clinical studies. The prerequisites ended her freshman season and nursing-specific classes began this current semester.

“I definitely can feel the difference,” she said. “It is a lot of material thrown at you really quickly. I didn’t have a lot of free time in-season because I was always studying. Next year, with clinicals, that is something I am going to have to learn to juggle because I know I will have days of 12-hour clinical work.”

Dale said she wanted to go into the medical field and likes working with kids.

“I think nursing is the happy balance for me,” she said. “With a nursing degree, there are a lot of possibilities and my plan is to get years of experience, go back for more schooling and become a nurse practitioner…like a pediatric or family nurse practitioner…Eventually I want to come back to Juneau, but first get some big city ER experience…but that depends on how I feel about hockey or being a traveling nurse or…how much I miss Juneau.”

Dale remembers her love of hockey started just before her fourth birthday, but does not remember her first goal. Older brothers Michael and Jacob both played for the Crimson Bears.

“I was definitely in love with the ice,” Dale said. “One of my first memories from hockey was, one, watching my older brothers play. And in-between the periods of their high school games, we were really little, we could get to play. Often times it would be a glow ball or a game with rings…but being on the ice was fantastic.”

Her most memorable hockey moment was winning state her senior year of high school for her Juneau Capitals JDIA 18U team. She had missed the JDHS Crimson Bears state trip as she was playing for Team Alaska at the Arctic Winter Games in Wood Buffalo, Alberta.

“Those were the guys I was playing with since I was literally five,” she said. “We grew up playing hockey together, we grew up always being around each other.”

The game was a triple-overtime win.

“I even remember us in the locker room before the final overtime,” Dale said.

Center Karter Kohlhase was struggling with the faceoffs so Dale suggested he switch with Brandon Campbell and then Kohlhase also switch with her side.

The move worked. Campbell won the faceoff and Kohlhase buried the shot.

“It worked and we scored and we won,” Dale said. “It was such a good way to end my youth hockey career.”

As for this season and beyond, Dale has already paved the way for future Juneau boys and girls.

“Coach Matt (JDHS coach Boline) told me all the younger girls in the program, they know my name, they know all about me,” Dale said. “For me, I think that is, like, so cool. That is award enough. I grew up playing with them, I know what it was like… We had separate locker rooms…I was often the only girl. I just think it is so cool for them to have someone so they know that they can do it, that it is not just for boys. You can be successful even in Juneau on a coed team.”

• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.