As Holy Family prepared for its section final match this past spring against the No. 1 ranked Class AA team in the state of Minnesota at the time in Minnetonka, the girls on the Fire roster knew that there was a possibility that they could pull off the upset but that it would be a hard fought game no matter what. The Fire had previously lost the last four section finals to the Skippers but the squad approached things differently in 2025 and went into this game with a newfound confidence that they could win it all.

“I didn’t have any nerves before the game against ‘Tonka - and I normally get super nervous,” said Holy Family’s starting goaltender, Kayla Swartout, despite being quite nervous before the section semifinal match against Eden Prairie a few days prior. “I just woke up that day and we didn’t have school for some reason and I just had no nerves all day. I showed up to the rink and still, no nerves.”

The game was quite competitive right from the start as both teams had a handful of shots in the first period, but no goals. Minnetonka ended up scoring first in the game during a powerplay in the second period and right when Fire fans may have started to get concerned about the outcome of the game, Holy Family scored in the third period to tie things up at 1-1 and to eventually send the game to overtime.

“The last five minutes felt like an instant,” added Swartout, who was definitely starting to feel the pressure as the game went on. “Going into overtime, I remember sitting and talking with my goalie partners and I was just like ‘guys, I can’t do this, I hate overtime, I don’t know if I can do this,’ but they were like ‘no, you’ve got this’, and my goalie partners were there to pat me on the back, so they gave me some confidence for sure going into overtime.”

The goaltender, who was a junior at the time, didn’t have to be nervous for very long though as the Fire scored just over a minute into the extra frame on a goal from senior captain Maielle Schugel, her first of the season. In fact, Swartout didn’t even have to record a save in the overtime period before Holy Family would win its first-ever section final to make its first-ever state tournament berth in the winter of 2025.

“I think it took me a few seconds (to realize that her team had scored the overtime game-winner),” joked Swartout about the moment that the Fire won the Section 2AA championship over longtime power Minnetonka. “I remember that I didn’t see it because there was so much chaos in front of the net but I think I remember seeing Maielle jump up and throw her gloves and I was like ‘oh my goodness, there’s no way this is happening’. If I go back and watch the video, I think I jumped like five feet in the air I was so excited.”

The upset victory over the No. 1-ranked Skippers also happened to make for a perfect Valentines Day gift considering that the game was played on February 14.

After the adrenaline wore off and the Fire athletes had finally realized that they were going to state for the very first time in program history, they set their sights on the Class AA quarterfinal matchup against Moorhead. Holy Family came into the tournament as the No. 5 seed while the Spuds were No. 4.

“I remember the day after we won (the section final), going back to school on Monday, that all the teachers and students, since we go to such a small school, were like ‘oh my gosh, congrats,” said Swartout about the praise the team received after winning the big section final game. “The week leading up to state, we didn’t go to school and we had some banquets and so much stuff going on so when it was finally time to play at state, I was definitely nervous. We had the late game and we were watching the other games (leading up to it) … once we got on the ice and we saw the students and all my friends up in the stands I was like ‘okay, we’re okay,’ and it’s awesome playing at the ‘X’ (the Xcel Energy Center, now recently renamed the Grand Casino Arena), it’s a dream come true.”

The Fire played extremely well in their quarterfinal matchup at state, holding Moorhead to zero shots on goal in the first period and eventually winning the game by a score of 3-1. Swartout made 16 saves on 17 shots.

“I remember during the first game that I was probably thinking way too much about everything,” joked Swartout about playing in St. Paul at the state tournament. “I was like ‘oh the lights, the boards’, and definitely thinking too much, but after that first win we were established and I think we all kind of decided as a team that we have already made it this far and we want it (the state title) … we’re ready to do whatever we can to win the next game.”

Unfortunately, the Fire ran into an extremely tough Edina squad in the semifinals and lost a heartbreaker match by a final score of 1-0. Swartout made an honorable 26 saves in that match. The team would bounce back in the consolation bracket though and wound up winning the Class AA third-place title with a 4-2 victory over Rosemount.

Obviously, the team was still excited to bring home some hardware to their school after their first state tournament appearance but the semifinal loss to Edina just made Holy Family more hungry to return to the event in 2026.

The Fire did lose a handful of seniors to graduation this past offseason, including leading scorer Josie Linn who is now at the University of New Hampshire, but a majority of athletes will be returning this fall and there are also a few new faces who will definitely make a big impact on the squad in 2025-26 as well.

“I’m so pumped, I’m so excited, we have a great class of freshmen who are all great humans and great hockey players. Watching them at tryouts - they’re flying,” said Swartout about how the squad is feeling about this season. “I think we’ll have such a good group this year of both people and hockey players.”

The Fire will actually have the most Division I committed athletes on its roster out of all the other high school programs in the state with seven (at the time of this story being written). The team has Swartout in net (Wisconsin), alongside defender Katya Sander (Minnesota), forwards Addy Cowan (Dartmouth), Ella Nonweiler (Stonehill), Chloe King (Franklin Pierce), Taryn Richter (St. Michael’s College - who also plays some ‘D’ as well) and Orono transfer Maddy Kimbrel (Wisconsin). The squad also adds in new faces to the roster such as the Youth Hockey Hub 2025 Sue Ring-Jarvi Player of the Year in Audrey Nichols of the Chaska/Chanhassen 15s team, so it’s safe to say that Holy Family is definitely going to be a team to watch in 2025-26.

Swartout herself is prepared to have her best season of high school hockey yet - but that’ll be tricky considering that she has already posted eye-popping statistics in each of her three years on varsity so far. The now senior netminder had excellent statistics as a backup goaltender to now Division I athlete Sedona Blair as a freshman before then taking over the starting job as a sophomore, where she posted a .928 save percentage and a 1.96 goals-against average for a Fire team that went 16-11-1 overall. As a junior, Swartout was the backstop of the Holy Family team that made school history by earning a state tournament berth and winning the third-place trophy in Class AA. She posted a whopping .940 save percentage and a 1.39 goals-against average in 2024-25 with a squad that finished with a 23-8 overall record.

Those statistics make Swartout a top candidate to win the Jori Jones Senior Goaltender of the Year award in 2026.

Despite attending Holy Family High School, which is located in Victoria, Minnesota, (to the southwest of the Twin Cities metro area), Swartout actually grew up in Shakopee and played there while she was a young skater until then competing with Minnesota Made programs up until middle school. She was originally going to play at the Academy of Holy Angels, where he older sister went to school, in eighth grade but after things got a bit jumbled up at the last minute she wound up playing one season of 15U in Andover with one of her close friends, Addy Cowan - who is now at Holy Family as well.

Swartout is actually the first person in her family to become a hockey player. She had a neighbor across the street who was a goaltender and she remembers seeing his equipment outside one day and begging her parents to put her into skating lessons and asking her older sister to try hockey too. Eventually they both joined the sport and Kayla remembers that she immediately wanted to be a goalie and constantly raising her hand to volunteer for the position as a young athlete and it wound up sticking.

The now 17-year-old goaltender has been at Holy Family for her entire high school career. She is now one of just a handful of Division 1 committed netminders in the state. Right before the start of her junior season for the Fire, Swartout announced her commitment to play at the University of Wisconsin, the current reigning national champions of women’s college hockey.

“I am so unbelievably honored and excited to announce my commitment to play Division I hockey and further my education at the University of Wisconsin - Madison! I am so grateful to all of my coaches, family, friends and teammates who have helped me achieve this goal,” she posted to her social media pages on October 29, 2024.

The recruiting process was a bit up and down for Swartout, which is similar for a lot of goaltenders. Many schools reached out early on in the offseason between her sophomore and junior years but then things slowed down a bit over the summer. Once August came though she was invited to go on a few visits to college campuses and she was over the moon when she was invited out to visit the Badgers.

“I never would have thought that Wisconsin would be asking me to come on a visit, so once they did I was like ‘yes, of course!’,” said the Shakopee native. “I went out there and it just felt like home, it was perfect. The hockey, the school, the campus - everything was just right for me.”

Wisconsin has been recruiting a handful of Minnesotans lately and Swartout is already familiar with a few of her future teammates, including forward Maddy Kimbrel who has transferred from Orono to Holy Family this season as a senior. The Badgers also have received commitments from Haley Box (from Eden Prairie but is currently playing in Canada), Emily Pohl (Hill-Murray), Josie Virnig (from Plymouth but is playing at Shattuck-St. Mary’s), and Audrey Davis (Edina).

Swartout remembers following the Badgers team quite closely last season in 2024-25 with Kimbrel and that the two of them were even able to attend some of the Wisconsin playoff games in Minneapolis at Ridder Arena, which got them extremely excited for the years to come.

For now, the Holy Family senior is preparing for her first game of the 2025-26 season which will come on Tuesday, November 11th at Lakeville South. The Fire are expected to be a top team in the state this winter and will absolutely be pushing for another chance at the Class AA state tournament.

Once she gets out to Madison, Swartout is considering studying something in business at the university while pursuing aviation outside of school, since she has always had an interest in becoming a pilot. When she’s not playing hockey, the senior goaltender enjoys immersing herself in her classes at school, reading, spending time outside or playing with her dogs.