UMD women stun No. 1 Badgers in semis
By John Gilbert
Timing was perfect. The only way Minnesota-Duluth could keep its flickering hopes alive to continue toward a possible berth in the upcoming NCAA Women’s Hockey Tournament would be to beat Wisconsin in the WCHA Final Faceoff semifinals, and to do that would require a perfect game. Wisconsin had beaten UMD all four times the two met this season, which helped make Wisconsin the No. 1 ranked women’s hockey team in the nation and also helped put UMD’s future in jeopardy.
But, says UMD coach Shannon Miller, the Bulldogs have been playing their best hockey of the season right now, so anything would be possible. Sure enough, with 1,057 fans on hand at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, the fourth-place and fourth-seeded Bulldogs pulled off their perfect game to whip the No. 1 ranked Badgers 3-1.
UMD's Jenna McParland was stopped -- this time -- by Wisconsin goalie Alex Rigsby.
Seniors Haley Irwin and goaltender Jennifer Harss both turned in stellar performances to inspire and keep the Bulldogs at an intense pace. Irwin set up both wingers, Audrey Cournoyer and Jenna McParland, for the goals that gave UMD leads of 1-0 and 2-1, and Harss was superb with 32 saves, many of them coming when the Badgers had two prolonged 5-on-3 power plays, and in a 6-on-4 last minute Badger assault.
The victory was UMD’s biggest game of the season, but for only 24 hours. Then would come the Final Faceoff final against Minnesota in a Saturday night special the became the Bulldogs “new” biggest game of the season. Minnesota’s second-seeded Golden Gophers thrashed third-seeded North Dakota 6-0, as Sarah Davis scored three goals and her linemate, Emily West added two, and Noora Raty spun another shutout to make the Gophers 30-5-2 for the season, against UMD’s 21-13-1.
Despite their scintillating victory over Wisconsin, a UMD loss to Minnesota in the final would leave the Bulldogs still in the marginal area trying to crack the NCAA’s eight-team field for next week. A victory over the Gophers, on the other hand, would gain the NCAA’s automatic berth which goes to the league playoff winner.
The Badgers had no worries about being selected. As the No. 1 team in national ratings, and WCHA season champ, the Badgers went home with a still-glittering 31-4-2 record. But Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson bristled at some superficial questions about whether the Badgers had no real inspiration for the UMD game.
“It’s like apples and oranges to compare this game to the regular season,” said Johnson. “We always have tough games with them, and usually we go overtime. Both teams were motivated for this game, we just didn’t do enough things to win today. I told our team this is a two-week tournament, and the four teams that get to this point can all win it. Going through this playoff series in our league prepares teams well for the NCAA.”
If desperation was worth any extra incentive, UMD certainly rose to the occasion, outshooting the Badgers 38-33. Irwin, a senior from Thunder Bay, spoke about what it meant for the seniors.
“The season has gone by fast, but we want to make it last as long as we can,” said Irwin. “For all the adversity we’ve faced, this was probably our biggest game of the season.”
UMD coach Shannon Miller was a bit more emphatic. “It was the biggest win in the year for us, and we’re playing our best hockey right now. We’re working hard, and this team has a lot of potential. We just beat the No. 1 team in the nation, and earlier this year, when Minnesota was No. 1, we beat them, too.”
Irwin, almost always the indicator of how UMD will play, set an aggressive tone from the start. She was whistled for three penalties in the game, the third covering the final minute, when freshman defenseman Bridgette Lacquette flipped a high clearing pass from 150 feet away that landed at an angle and curved just right to slide into the open Wisconsin goal and clinch the victory.
Irwin was in the only place she didn’t want to be in the final minute, when she was penalized at 19:02. Wisconsin goalie Alex Rigsby was pulled for a sixth attacker, and the prolific top guns in Wisconsin’s explosive attack fired at will. Harss was brilliant. When the puck finally got blocked loose in the slot, freshman defenseman Bridgette Lacquette gained possession. She couldn’t get much on her shot as she flipped a backhander out of the zone. The puck appeared headed a few feet wide left of the open net, but it landed on one edge and bounced, then curved about 20 degrees to the right. It slithered into the open goal, barely making it.
UMD goaltender Jennifer Harss stretched wide to thwart Badger Brooke Ammerman.
“I really was just trying to clear the zone,” said Lacquette. “I watched it all the way. It was really an exciting game.”
It had taken a full 60 minutes to reach that last-minute euphoria, however. Midway through the first period, Irwin stole the puck near the Wisconsin blue line, and made a deft back pass toward the Badger net to Cournoyer, whose shot from the left circle was blocked. Cournoyer retrieved the puck and cut to her right, across the slot, as Rigsby was caught anticipating a shot, and Cournoyer lifted her 22nd goal in on a 15-foot backhand at 8:10.
Harss and the Bulldogs held the 1-0 lead until Brianna Decker broke into the UMD zone on a power-play rush, made a spectacular move to duck past a defenseman, and snapped a shot into the upper right corner against Harss at 5:45 of the middle period. The power-play goal made Wisconsin 1-9 with an extra skater, including a pair of 5-on-3 power plays, one lasting 52 seconds and the other 1:07. UMD, meanwhile, was blanked on six power plays.
“I don’t know if it was my best, but it was a good one,” said Harss, who is from Rieden, Germany. “They had a few good shots, but our team did a good job on penalty-killing. It definitely feels good because the whole team played well.”
Late in the second period, UMD’s top line connected again. This time Irwin won a faceoff to McParland, a freshman, who skated up the left side, skirted around the outside of a Badger defenseman in the left circle, then veered to the net and held the puck until she passed the crease, leaving just enough room to tuck a shot past Rigsby at the right post.
“We had a good faceoff win, and the middle was open,” said McParland. “Our coach says to always keep your feet moving, so I listened to what she said and kept going. She [Rigsby] kind of swiped at the puck and missed, so I held it.”
Bulldogs celebrate Bridgette Lacquette's 150-foot empty-net clincher to beat Wisconsin 3-1.
Rigsby, who seemed to be battling the puck a little during the game, was pulled in the closing minutes for an extra skater, but as she was about halfway to the bench, UMD gained possession, and Jennifer Wong flipped a shot from center ice toward the empty net. Rigsby raced back toward the crease and made a headlong dive, reaching her stick out to deflect the shot wide on what was easily her most spectacular save of the game.
“She just didn’t want her coach to look bad for pulling her at the wrong time,” said Johnson.
In the second game, Minnesota stormed in front and never looked back. “We played a complete game, 60 minutes,” said Minnesota coach Brad Frost, whose team finished second to Wisconsin in a two-team title chase. “The favorite lost tonight, with Wisconsin, and we didn’t want to see two upsets. When we left, I looked around our arena, and noticed that the banner that showed the last time we won the league playoff championship was 2005. We’re really excited about the chance to play for the championship, and we know what we’ll get from Duluth in the final.”
Junior Noora Raty recorded her second shutout in a row, ninth of the season, and boosted her school record for career shutouts to 25, with another year to go. She stopped all 27 North Dakota shots. Sarah Davis, who has been steady but not among Minnesota’s scorers all season — coming into the game tied for seventh with 8 goals — led the charge from the outset, when a power-play pass across the slot glanced in off her skate at 2:14. She didn’t kick it in, but the puck hit her skate while she was turning her foot to stop, and the goal was eventually disallowed. That could have given North Dakota a lift, but instead it seemed to increase Minnesota’s determination. Barely a minute later, West scored with a rebound to the left of the goal, as Minnesota had outshot the Sioux 5-0.
“We played scared,” said North Dakota’s Jocelyn Lamoureux. “They called off that first goal, but we didn’t respond. At this time of year, it’s not about adjusting, or who you cover, it’s about playing your game. Tonight we showed up excited, but when the game started, we sat back, and didn’t really go for it. After we were losing by five or six, we started playing well.”
When it was only 1-0, the Golden Gophers kept the pressure on in the Fighting Sioux zone. West fed Davis late in the first period, and she made it 2-0 by crossing the slot and scoring with a backhand at the right edge. Davis scored again at 4:09 of the second period, and victory started to look deceptively easy when Jen Schoulis stickhandled around two defenders while rushing up the right side. She shot from the circle, and the puck glanced off starting goaltender Stephanie Ney, carrying into the net at 8:09, to make it 4-0.
Minnesota made it 5-0 a second after a power play had expired, when West tried to pass from the left circle. The puck was blocked back to her, so she shot instead. “I tried to pass to Davie [Davis],” West said, “and when it came back to me I shot. It hit their defenseman, then I got lucky and it bounced off her [the goalie’s] elbow and went in.”
North Dakota coach Brian Idalski summoned Ney to the bench after the fifth Gopher goal, and installed Jorid Dagfinrud, a junior from Norway, between the pipes. She didn’t have much work, since the damage had been done. With Davis and West both scoring twice, they collaborated on the only goal of the third period, which was another odd goal. West moved in from the right corner for a shot that hit Dagfinrud and trickled beyond her, coming to rest in the crease. Davis raced a Fighting Sioux defenseman for the puck, and as luck would have it, Davis fanned on her attempt, but the near miss got enough of the puck to send it barely across the goal line at 3:26.
“I whiffed, and the air from my whiff blew the puck across the line,” joked Davis.
Raty, meanwhile, had several big saves, but mainly she had an easy shutout. She said she doesn’t know how many shutouts she has, but added, “I always play like the goalie should get a shutout.”
Frost looked over at his star goaltender and said, “Nobody talks to Noora except our goalie coach. I don’t think I’ve ever given her any advice — and you can see the result of that.”
It didn’t look easy on the other bench. Idalski said: “It was a tough one for us tonight. Minnesota got the lead, and we had trouble with their speed as they built the lead. But it wasn’t all us; Minnesota has a helluva hockey team. I’ve seen a lot of teams come through our league and go on to win the national championship, and that club is as deep and talented as any I’ve seen.”
All of which guarantees the Golden Gophers exactly nothing against UMD in the Final Faceoff final.
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About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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