Covering the net

Published 2:50 pm Saturday, December 26, 2009

She stands between two posts and is surrounded by a net that looks more like a cage. She faces flying pucks and sometimes flying people.

But through it all, Austin’s Audrey DeVries has managed to keep her poise, and she’s gotten better each of the past two seasons as she has been the Austin girls hockey team’s primary goalie.

This season she’s averaging career bests in goals against per game (2.5) and save percentage (92.4 percent), while notching four shutouts in 13 games for the Packers (6-6-1 overall).

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“She’s turning into one of my premiere goalies,” Austin head coach Denny Bray said. “I told the girls right away if we’re going to go anywhere, the goal tending is going to carry us. We’ve faced a lot of shots this year and we’ve kept it close.”

DeVries, a senior, has no secret equation for her success. She just concentrates on improving on her weaknesses and she spends a small amount of time in isolation getting focused before every contest. She acknowledges that the mental part makes up 85 to 90 percent of goaltending and she often talks to herself during games to stay focused.

“So much of it is a natural, instinct reaction when the puck’s coming at you and you have to get in front of it somehow,” DeVries said. “You’ve got to stay focused the whole time, otherwise your game is gone.”

When DeVries is playing her ‘A’ game, she’s tough to score on.

“When Audrey’s on, she plays very well,” said Austin senior defender Ashley Crump. “On defense she talks to you a lot. She’ll let you know you know if you’re screening her and she’ll pump you up. She’s a great communicator and she knows how to talk to her team.”

Bray said DeVries, who has 13 career shutouts — including a school record six shutouts her sophomore season — has shown drastic strides of improvement as a leader this year.

“She’s matured a lot,” he said. “Audrey has really grown up from last year to this year. She’s turning into a really good leader and the girls respect her, I’m pretty proud of her.”

DeVries credits her leadership skills from her experience playing with the likes of Taylor Jenkins and Catherine Wagner early in her career.

“Having Taylor and Wags to look up when we went to state two years ago showed me what the leadership role is all about,” DeVries said.

Bray also hopes his goalie catches fire for the section tournament, because he’d like to make another run at that the state tournament.

“She’s going to have a few bad games in there, I’ll accept that,” he said. “We just hope she’s hot for sections.”

If she is, the Packers will be a tough team to knock off.