Badgers Sweep Lady Bulldogs

NSO – NEWS RELEASE

Perhaps fans saw some foreshadowing of what is to come for University of Minnesota Duluth women’s hockey team in its 6-2 loss to the No. 2 University of Wisconsin at AMSOIL Arena Saturday night.  And despite the final outcome, head coach Shannon Miller had no problem with what she saw from most of her squad.

“Our skaters played very well tonight, we started hard and we finished hard and I am really happy with all the kids that were skating out tonight, ” said Miller.  “We are obviously having some goaltending issues, you can’t really hide that and I have to call a spade a spade.  But as for the skaters, I thought we were good and we played well as a team.  They just had three very quick, very easy goals and it just broke our back.”

The loss gives the Badgers a sweep of the series and put the Bulldogs overall record at 1-2-1 and 0-2-0 in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.

UMD’s effort from the initial face-off was impressive, and the Bulldogs took over the 1-0 lead 13:13 into the game as a result of it. Senior winger Meghan Huertas slid a pass from the left face-off dot to a hard charging Zoe Hickel in the slot, and Hickel shelved the puck for her third goal on the season.

Wisconsin answered 5:15 later when Blayre Turnbull intercepted Kayla Black‘s poke check and knotted the game at 1-1.  Badger Sarah Nurse then struck again off another rebound to push UW into a 2-1 advantage at 19:23.

The Badgers finally broke the Bulldogs stronghold on their power play 4:02 into the second period on Nurse’s second tally of the night.  Another goal by Wisconsin 1:14 later stretched the Badger lead to 4-1, and completed an unanswered four-goal run by UW over a 6:58 span that drastically altered UMD’s upset hopes.

UMD entered the third period trailing 5-1, and a hustle play that resulted in a score by senior winger Jenna McParland just 39 seconds into the stanza clipped UW’s lead to three goals.  But Turnbull again answered for the Badgers, beating Karissa Grapp at the 6:10 mark.

Black made 25 saves in 40 minutes between the pipes, while Grapp, who started the third period, made 11 stops.  Ann-Renee Desbiens made 22 saves for Wisconsin, who went 2-of-4 on the power play Saturday night.

The Bulldogs will host the No. 1 University of Minnesota next weekend at AMSOIL.  Both Friday and Saturday’s contests are set to start at 6:07 p.m.