THIS WEEK IN BADGER HISTORY
GREG ANDERSON
CAMP RANDALL 100 SPOTLIGHT:
BRIANNA DECKER
The Camp Randall 100 honors a prestigious group of 100 people who shaped the first century of Camp Randall Stadium. Wisconsin Athletics revealed a new honoree every day from May 24 through the Badgers’ 2017 opening game vs. Utah State Sept. 1.
BY ANDY BAGGOT UWBadgers.com Insider
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rianna Decker’s freshman season with the Wisconsin women’s hockey team did not go as planned. Two games into her rookie year, she broke her right elbow crashing into an unforgiving net while scoring a goal against North Dakota. The injury caused her to miss nine games. Decker finished second on the team with 15 goals and third with 27 points — a hint of things to come from the future Patty Kazmaier Award winner and U.S. Olympian — but the Badgers endured an uncharacteristically forgettable season. UW lost 11 of its last 17 games, finished 18-15-3 overall and failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2004.
Wisconsin was 4-8 in one-goal outings and saw its season end at home with consecutive overtime losses to Ohio State in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs. The Badgers had personnel issues that were impossible to overlook. Head coach Mark Johnson was in the midst of a one-year sabbatical to oversee Team USA in the 2010 Winter Olympics and two of his best players — wingers Meghan Duggan and Hilary Knight — went with him. That left interim coach Tracey DeKeyser to manage a squad with 12 underclassmen, including nine first-year players. But the season had a definite highlight. Wisconsin played Bemidji State in a WCHA game outdoors as part of the Camp Randall Hockey Classic on Feb. 6. Decker scored two goals as the Badgers claimed a 6-1 decision before a crowd of 8,263.