WENATCHEE, Wash. - The Wenatchee Wild Hockey Academy's 15-Only team made lots of history this past season. It started the moment they took the ice.

Wenatchee iced its first-ever USA Hockey-certified Tier I "national-bound" 15O team this season, and the first in Washington state history, after.  fielding a team in 2023-24 within its weekend model that featured only 2008-born players. This year's team finished with 15 wins, and went 4-1 at the CCM World Invite in Denver in September, the program's very first tournament as an official 15O team. They also finished sixth in the Northwest Hockey League, a confederation of 16U teams across the Pacific Northwest playing at the AA level. As the state's only 15O team, the circuit allowed head coach Norm Lochten's team to play against regional opponents, albeit slightly older competition.

"I think the season was a success," said Lochten. "Coming in as a first-year coach with the program, we focused on building team culture, and fostering individual growth. Teaching fundamental skills and habits is a big key instead of focusing solely on winning. Moving forward, a lot of the young players on the team this year will move on to either junior teams, or U17 and U18 programs. A lot of these guys are going to be moving on to higher ranks, which means they're going to be doing the same thing and playing against kids that are older than them. I think it was a really good eye-opening experience."

Tucker Lochten posted 56 points, including 32 goals, while Keagan Nussbaum notched 24 goals of his own. Goaltenders Dylan Grace and Bannen Clements split the time - and the wins - evenly in net. Wenatchee played a light schedule over the final six weeks of its season, dropping six of the final seven, but highlighted the end of its season with a 5-4 win over the Utah Dawgs in the final game of its league playoff.

"Obviously, I'm really happy with Tucker's success and what he was able to do this season," said Lochten. "He came up big there at the end, and put the team on his back to give us a win to finish out the season. Even other players saw tremendous growth, and I'm really happy with the way they all ended up. Our back end was really good - we focused on defense and 'cleaning out the house'."

With all players on the roster having been born in 2009, the 15O roster will see full turnover next year, Lochten announced following the season that he would step down from coaching duties ahead of the 2025-26 season, with assistant coach Spencer White earning a promotion to the head coaching position.