From UMD’s stars to fill-ins, everybody played role in NCAA title
Riana Burke was never more than a spare goaltender in her two years with the UMD women’s varsity hockey team, but her performance Thursday night was strictly first-line when she and fellow-seniors Brittny Ralph and Kellie Frick addressed the turnout of appreciative fans that filled the Holiday Inn ballroom to pay tribute to the school’s first NCAA championship team.
The only full games Burke got to start and tend goal for the UMD women’s hockey team this season was when Tuula Puputti was gone, among the top six Bulldogs who played for Finland and Sweden in the Four Nations tournament, which meant Burke was the victim of two heavy midseason losses at Minnesota. Burke showed what she was made of, by declaring the 4-0 and 8-0 losses the best time of her life.
That’s why, after the high-profile stars such as Maria Rooth (41 goals), Hanne Sikio (34 goals), Erika Holst (25 goals) and others, the perspective of the team from Burke’s backup perspective was a highlight of the Bulldogs celebration for two formative by superlative years.
“I got to travel all around the country with some of the best hockey players in the world,” said Burke, who is from Robbinsdale. “Only 22 girls got to experience what I did. Among the things I’ll never forget, were Michelle McAteer dancing — dancing on the ice, dancing in the locker room, dancing all the time. I’ll remember our bus drivers; we always loved our bus drivers.
“And our coaches, who knew exactly what to say, and always said the right thing, whether we needed a kick in the butt, or a pat on the back. I’ll never forget when the coaches came out with wigs on at our last practice before the NCAA tournament last week, and we were doing things like seeing how far we could slide on our stomachs on the ice. The St. Lawrence players were watching, and must have wondered what we were doing. But we won. So it worked.
“I wouldn’t trade one minute of my time with this team for anything.”
There was plenty of emotion, and mutual love and respect among team members, and the reception was just the right lighthearted touch after the Bulldogs defeated Harvard 6-3 and St. Lawrence 4-2 last weekend at Mariucci Arena to win the first-ever NCAA tournament for women hockey players. Coach Shannon Miller recalled how chancellor Kathryn Martin told her she had three years to win a national championship, and after last weekend, Miller reminded her that it only took two years. But Martin reminded Miller that she had a whole year to assemble the team, so it did take her three years.
Miller chose personality and chemistry as well as skill, as she combed the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland for the players on this team. They partied together, played together, and wound up with a blend of team camaraderie, willingness to work hard, while retaining the capacity of sheer fun, which may be unprecedented in college sports. The ‘Dogs began play last season with a sweep at Wisconsin, which featured defenseman Pamela Pachal punching out an aggravating opponent, and progressed undefeated into February in a Cinderella first season culminated with the WCHA title, the league playoff title, and trip to the ACHA final four.
Then they came back to pull together even harder this season, making up for the loss of Jenny Schmidgall, who was having a baby, to again win the league playoff title and this time roar through the NCAA tournament to write their name into history.
Athletic Director Bob Corran read a proclamation from Mayor Gary Doty, in which he thanked the players for their effort, and their impressive representation of Duluth, and proclaimed: “March 29, 2001, UMD Women’s Hockey Day.”
But the simple statements of thanks by Ralph, and Frick’s display of the giant heart-shaped fabric she put together with the names of every player represented as a symbol of the team’s collective heart, and Burke’s heartfelt overview, spoke volumes about the team’s concept.
The teamwork was also underscored when Miller recalled the team’s post-tournament celebration at the Minneapolis Radisson last Sunday night. Holst, a Swedish star center who missed the event because she is skating with Team Sweden in preparation for next week’s World Tournament, asked if she could have her picture taken with the trophy. Someone jokingly asked: “What did you contribute to the team?”
Holst said: “One-twentieth.”
Everybody played a role. No more, and no less.
Have you heard the news? UMD’s women secretly win NCAA
You may have heard by now, but UMD won the first Women’s NCAA hockey tournament championship. Or, you may not have heard.
The state of women’s sports right now is that the quality and caliber has risen to impressive heights, but the presence of fans and the pressure those fans can bring to bear on the media have lagged behind. Far behind. UMD has not drawn very well in its two spectacular seasons of women’s hockey existence, and yet officials are genuinely thrilled to get as many as they do. The Bulldogs, with 1,000 or 2,000 a game, are among the top couple of teams in the nation for attendance.
A lot of hockey fans — good hockey fans — have resisted any urge to go and watch the UMD women play. They read about the Bulldogs in the papers, and on such places as “duluth.com,” and they may even tune in 96-Lite FM to listen to a game now and then, but they haven’t gotten around to going down to the DECC to watch them play. Too bad. What they would have seen, last season and this, is an impressive array of talent gathered from all over the world to represent UMD. They have been recruited from Duluth, from the Twin Cities, from Canada, from Sweden and from Finland by coach Shannon Miller, but they have had a unique, upbeat chemistry from the first day of practice a year ago.
Last year’s team was one of the most compelling stories in Division I college hockey in years, sailing undefeated through the first 19 games of their existence before losing at New Hampshire on Feb. 5, 2000. They won the Women’s WCHA, the league playoff, and went to the unofficial, coaches association/USA Hockey final four, where they lost and finished fourth. This season, there was some question about whether the Bulldogs could come close to last year’s accomplishments without Jenny Schmidgall, who took the season off and had a baby in January. Smiggy, the nation’s leading scorer last year, is trying out this week with the U.S. National team for the World Tournament, which will be held in Minnesota starting next week. Let’s just say that if she DOESN’T make it, there’ll be an investigation.
At any rate, Miller’s concerted coaching effort was to prod the returning players to step up boldly and fill the void left by Schmidgall, and, sure enough, by working together the Bulldogs wound up as the best team in the nation. Fans, however, still accepted the team from afar, rather than from the turnstiles. The official stamp of approval on women’s college hockey came last weekend, when, for the first time, the NCAA held its first official tournament. The NCAA selection committee had four areas of information from which to choose four at-large teams. Despite what you may have read — repeatedly — in Twin Cities newspapers, it was not a hair-splitting decision to exclude the Gophers from the Frozen Four. The propaganda machine churned out the news that the committee went strictly by the “Pairwise Power” computer rankings, and the Gophers were fifth in that listing.
But the computer ranking was only one of four criteria used by the committee. In the other three, the ratings were: 1. Dartmouth, 2. UMD, 3. Harvard, 4. St. Lawrence, 5. Brown, and 6. Minnesota. The Pairwise had 5 and 6 reversed. So the Gophers excluded themselves, by losing and tying UMD on the last weekend of the regular season, then being blown out 4-0 by Ohio State in league playoff semifinals, and also losing to Wisconsin in the league playoff third-place game. That dropped the Gophers to sixth. Right before the selections were made, it was announced that the Gophers had sold only 1,500 tickets. You could read that however you chose; I viewed it as a suggestion it could be much more if the Gophers were to get selected.
That didn’t happen, which led to much consternation. The Gophers wanted to put on a first-class show as host of the prestigious first tournament, but they also fully expected to be there playing. When they faltered and failed to make it, they still wanted to put on a great show, but if they hustled to sell 5,000 to 9,000 tickets for the games at Mariucci Arena, those folks would be getting a three-day overdose of how wonderful the UMD program was. The Gopher sports information staff did a great job of coordinating and spewing out information and press conferences throughout the tournament. They couldn’t have done better if the Gophers had been involved, although the enormous Gopher-spewing PR machine would have kicked in via the Twin Cities media. There was one 25-inch feature advancing the tournament which never mentioned any of the four teams involved, but analyzed what a tough sell it was because the Gophers had been left out.
I was criticized by sources at Bierman Athletic Office a couple weeks ago for suggesting that MSC stood for “Minnesota Sports ChannelÂ…oops! Midwest Sports Channel.” I must admit, I was impressed that MSC was slated to carry both semifinals and the championship from the women’s tournament. On about Wednesday, however, it was announced, somewhat subtlely, that MSC had changed plans. Instead of covering the NCAA women’s semifinals and final, it would instead pick up the feeds of NCAA men’s regional hockey. Just a coincidence, I’m sure, that MSC was carrying the Minnesota-Maine men’s game from Worcester, Mass., instead of picking up the UMD-Harvard women’s NCAA semifinal at Mariucci Arena.
What else would you expect from “Minnesota Sports Channel,” where the “U of” is in such tiny letters preceding the call letters that you can’t quite hear it pronounced. You just know it’s there.
At the Friday semifinals, a woman went to Mariucci Arena to see the UMD-Harvard game. She might have gone to see the Dartmouth-St. Lawrence game, too, but sometimes these games involve separate session tickets. So she resisted the $7 parking lot and found a $5 lot. Then she went into the arena to buy a ticket. They said it was $24. She hesitated, but bought one. The ticket itself had “$20” inscribed right on it. She complained, but the ticket person said regardless, the ticket would cost her $24, take it or leave it. She took it, but already was perturbed at being up to a $30 investment before considering a program or popcorn.
She noticed two groups of people arriving just as she did, having also already paid for parking. There were four people in one group, two in the other. They paused, looked at the ticket prices, found out that the $20 tickets were going for $24, and turned around and walked back out the door into the chilly night.
I was repeating that incident to a friend of mine, and he said he could explain the discrepancy between $20 and $24 because he had brought his less-than-1-year-old baby with him to the game, in his arms. He didn’t have to pay $24 for a ticket for the baby, but he did have to pay $20, which was the student ticket price.
Yet another friend said he hurried to the game and asked for a ticket and bought it with his bank account debit card, and it wasn’t until he was going to his seat that he actually checked the price and realized he had undergone a major-league gouging.
Now, we aren’t going to blame the University of Minnesota for the high cost of tickets. It undoubtedly is the NCAA’s call. As for the bait-and-switch markup on the listed ticket price — who knows? Maybe the powers that be figured that only 3,000 would show up, and they’d be such diehards they’d pay whatever cost was established. Or reestablished. But in my humble opinion, women’s hockey would have been better served if 9,000 fans had been there, paying $10 apiece, rather than 3,000 paying $24 apiece. And if the games were on MSC, or some other independent channel with an actual social conscience.
The good news was that when UMD returned to campus Monday afternoon, there was a nice little gathering to greet the players, who looked good considering that they not only had to beat St. Lawrence 4-2 in the title game, but also had to survive their post-game celebration back at their hotel Sunday night. In the background, a couple of people who happened to be there and saw the wholesome look of satisfaction and excitement on those bright, smiling faces, said, “We’ll have to go to some games next year.”
UMD wins national title
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—Ten years from nowÂ…20 years from now, whenever somebody buys a program for the NCAA women’s hockey tournament and looks up the page that lists all the NCAA national champions, the first name at the top of the list will always be: University of Minnesota-Duluth.
The UMD Bulldogs spotted St. Lawrence an opening power-play goal, then responded with four unanswered goals over the next two periods to beat the Saints 4-2 and win the championship trophy of the first NCAA national women’s hockey tournament. UMD finishes 28-5-4, while St. Lawrence is 24-8-3.
While only in its second year of existence, the UMD women’s team also brought to UMD its first-ever national championship, and in a Division I sport, at that.
It was entirely fitting that Jenny Hempel, who was placed at center on the third line to give UMD a credible three-line attack, scored late in the first period to get the Bulldog offense untracked. Then UMD scoring stars Maria Rooth and Hanne Sikio made it 3-1 with goals early and late in the second period. Laurie Alexander, another unsung worker-bee in the UMD structure, scored on Rooth’s rebound early in the third period to put the game away at 4-1.
It was then, and only then, that the Bulldogs refused to do coach Shannon Miller’s bidding. She wanted them to keep skating and attacking, but the magnitude of the moment seemed to overwhelm the Bulldogs, and they backed off, retreating defensively instead of pressing the attack.
Thanks to Tuula Puputti’s brilliant goaltending, and the willing team defense to block out St. Lawrence attackers, it didn’t really matter. The only goal the cautious lapse allowed was Isabelle Chartrand’s skipping shot from the right point on a last-minute power play.
“Obviously I’m very proud of what we accomplished, as a second-year team,” said Miller, after she got doused with the water bucket while being carried around the Mariucci Arena rink by Sikio and Erika Holst. “We have some very talented individuals, but we really won this as a team.”
St. Lawrence, which had upset No. 1 ranked Dartmouth 3-1 in Friday’s semifinals, while UMD took out No. 3 Harvard 6-3, skated hard to go toe-to-toe with the Bulldogs through the first period. Midway through the period, Hempel responded to being cross-checked and drew a penalty, and on the power play, Amanda Sargeant carried in from the left boards, unchecked, and waited until Puputti went down before snapping her shot that bulged the roof of the net at 11:22.
“I was screened for a while, and I went down, but she’s a good player and made a good shot,” said Puputti, who hesitated to say that this weekend was her best goaltending. “At least it was good enough. I haven’t had my perfect game yet.”
Miller reinforced her star sophomore goalie’s status. “This was the best Tuula has played this year.”
The Saints were swarming, trying to go for a duplicate of the 3-0 first-period lead they’d established against Dartmouth, but Puputti stopped 11 shots in the first period, and UMD came back. It was the third line’s turn, with a faceoff in the left corner of the Saints zone. Hempel won the draw and broke to the net.
“I got the faceoff back to Navada Russel,” Hempel said. “I slid off my check and hustled to the net. The goalie made the save on Navada, and I shot at it, but she stopped that, too. I got another try, and it went in. It felt so good — what a relief!”
“Our third line was tremendous, going back to Friday, when we needed them most,” said Miller. “And Jenny Hempel was a warrior all weekend. She was pretty proud after she got that goal, and that line played so well I kept playing them regularly, all night.”
It was still tense in the second period, although, as usual, the Bulldogs responded to an offensive spark, this time Hempel’s. At 5:36 of the second period, Rooth — who had a hat trick Friday and was named tournament MVP with four goals and two assists in two games — swept across center ice and broke up the slot, pulling the puck to the left and stuffing her 41st goal between goalie Rachel Barrie’s legs for a 2-1 UMD lead.
Rooth, who seemed to have scoring chances every shift, said, “I hoped it would just be a matter of time.”
The Bulldog segment of the crowd of 3,079 and the lively UMD pep band celebrated, and the Bulldogs were off and running. But Barrie, a left-handed goaltender, which means she wears her catching glove on her right hand, came up with most of the chances as UMD outshot the Saints 13-2 in the middle period. It wasn’t until 16:05 that the ‘Dogs scored again, this time when freshman Sanna Peura wedged the puck out off the right boards and Sikio broke for the pass, snapping a low shot through Barrie’s pads for her 34th of the season.
Five minutes into the third period, Rooth came into the zone just in time to pick off a careless outlet pass, and she rushed in but had her shot blocked by Barrie. Alexander, however, banged the rebound in at 5:22, and the Bulldogs were in command.
“I kept telling the players to keep going, but I couldn’t get them to,” said Miller afterward. “You know that’s not my style.”
While the Bulldogs wound up outshooting St. Lawrence 35-31 for the game, they let the Saints have a 17-8 edge in the third period, which made for a strong finish with Navada Russell taking a penalty and St. Lawrence coach Paul Flanagan pulling Barrie for an extra skater with 1:30 left. Freshman Gina Kingsbury, who was the Saints most dynamic player all weekend, got the puck out to the right point and Chartrand walked in and fired a shot that skipped once through traffic and found the net.
But only 54 seconds remained and the Bulldogs weren’t about to let this historic opportunity slip away.
“I couldn’t be prouder of my team,” said St. Lawrence coach Paul Flanagan, who, like Miller, is only in his second year. “We were picked for sixth in the ECAC at the start of the season, and for us to come this far, to this game, makes quite a statement for our program. Congratulations to Duluth, they are a very worthy champion. They did a great job from start to finish, and they were very well-coached and well-prepared for us.
“We had hoped to create a forecheck, so we could use our strength, which is cycling the puck low. But they did a great job of taking that away from us.”
ROOTH, PUPUTTI, RALPH
MAKE ALL-TOURNAMENT
Maria Rooth was most valuable player and a member of the all-tournament team, where she was joined by teammates Tuula Puputti in goal and Brittny Ralph on defense. St. Lawrence forward Amanda Sargeant and defenseman Isabelle Chartrand also made the team, which was rounded out by forward Tammy Shewchuk of Harvard.
HARVARD 3,
DARTMOUTH 2
Harvard got two goals from Kalen Ingram in support of Tammy Shewchuk’s first-minute tally and the Crimson went on to defeat Dartmouth 3-2 in a lively third-place game of the NCAA women’s hockey tournament. The two Ivy League rivals shook off the disappointment of Friday’s semifinal losses and went at each other aggressively.
When it was over, Harvard, which came into the weekend ranked No. 3, dealt the second straight loss to Dartmouth, which had come in after riding the No. 1 slot virtually all season. The Crimson wind up 24-10, Dartmouth 26-5-1.
“This was a typical Harvard-Dartmouth game,” said Dartmouth coach Judy Oberting. “We have a great rivalry. The loss doesn’t hurt as much as Friday’s. Also, it’s the end for six players, which hurts a lot more than losing a game that was so hard-fought.”
Shewchuk’s goal off an Ingram pass at 1:00 was offset when Kristina Guarinolo tied it at 16:34, but Ingram scored from amid a pile of bodies at the Dartmouth goal at 17:18 to leave Harvard up 2-1 at intermission. Carly Haggard tied it for the feisty Dartmouth team on a goal-crashing rush at 6:20 of the second period, but Ingram scored with Laura McAuliffe’s 3-on-2 pass at 16:11. From there on, Harvard goalie Jessica Ruddick outshined Meaghan Cahill of Dartmouth to hold the lead through a scorelee third period.
An interesting feature of the game was that Jennifer Botterill, who Saturday night was named Patty Kazmeier Award winner as the best player in women’s college hockey, was held without a point for the first time in her college career — an 80-game streak snapped. But the junior winger did it with typical style. With Cahill pulled for a sixth Dartmouth attacker, Botterill got the puck on the right boards at center ice and five seconds remaining. She could have shot for the empty net, but instead she just kept the puck along the boards until the buzzer. Harvard didn’t need another goal, and obviously the individual streak meant nothing to Botterill.
UMD wins national title
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—Ten years from nowÂ…20 years from now, whenever somebody buys a program for the NCAA women’s hockey tournament and looks up the page that lists all the NCAA national champions, the first name at the top of the list will always be: University of Minnesota-Duluth.
The UMD Bulldogs spotted St. Lawrence an opening power-play goal, then responded with four unanswered goals over the next two periods to beat the Saints 4-2 and win the championship trophy of the first NCAA national women’s hockey tournament. UMD finishes 28-5-4, while St. Lawrence is 24-8-3.
While only in its second year of existence, the UMD women’s team also brought to UMD its first-ever national championship, and in a Division I sport, at that.
It was entirely fitting that Jenny Hempel, who was placed at center on the third line to give UMD a credible three-line attack, scored late in the first period to get the Bulldog offense untracked. Then UMD scoring stars Maria Rooth and Hanne Sikio made it 3-1 with goals early and late in the second period. Laurie Alexander, another unsung worker-bee in the UMD structure, scored on Rooth’s rebound early in the third period to put the game away at 4-1.
It was then, and only then, that the Bulldogs refused to do coach Shannon Miller’s bidding. She wanted them to keep skating and attacking, but the magnitude of the moment seemed to overwhelm the Bulldogs, and they backed off, retreating defensively instead of pressing the attack.
Thanks to Tuula Puputti’s brilliant goaltending, and the willing team defense to block out St. Lawrence attackers, it didn’t really matter. The only goal the cautious lapse allowed was Isabelle Chartrand’s skipping shot from the right point on a last-minute power play.
“Obviously I’m very proud of what we accomplished, as a second-year team,” said Miller, after she got doused with the water bucket while being carried around the Mariucci Arena rink by Sikio and Erika Holst. “We have some very talented individuals, but we really won this as a team.”
St. Lawrence, which had upset No. 1 ranked Dartmouth 3-1 in Friday’s semifinals, while UMD took out No. 3 Harvard 6-3, skated hard to go toe-to-toe with the Bulldogs through the first period. Midway through the period, Hempel responded to being cross-checked and drew a penalty, and on the power play, Amanda Sargeant carried in from the left boards, unchecked, and waited until Puputti went down before snapping her shot that bulged the roof of the net at 11:22.
“I was screened for a while, and I went down, but she’s a good player and made a good shot,” said Puputti, who hesitated to say that this weekend was her best goaltending. “At least it was good enough. I haven’t had my perfect game yet.”
Miller reinforced her star sophomore goalie’s status. “This was the best Tuula has played this year.”
The Saints were swarming, trying to go for a duplicate of the 3-0 first-period lead they’d established against Dartmouth, but Puputti stopped 11 shots in the first period, and UMD came back. It was the third line’s turn, with a faceoff in the left corner of the Saints zone. Hempel won the draw and broke to the net.
“I got the faceoff back to Navada Russel,” Hempel said. “I slid off my check and hustled to the net. The goalie made the save on Navada, and I shot at it, but she stopped that, too. I got another try, and it went in. It felt so good — what a relief!”
“Our third line was tremendous, going back to Friday, when we needed them most,” said Miller. “And Jenny Hempel was a warrior all weekend. She was pretty proud after she got that goal, and that line played so well I kept playing them regularly, all night.”
It was still tense in the second period, although, as usual, the Bulldogs responded to an offensive spark, this time Hempel’s. At 5:36 of the second period, Rooth — who had a hat trick Friday and was named tournament MVP with four goals and two assists in two games — swept across center ice and broke up the slot, pulling the puck to the left and stuffing her 41st goal between goalie Rachel Barrie’s legs for a 2-1 UMD lead.
Rooth, who seemed to have scoring chances every shift, said, “I hoped it would just be a matter of time.”
The Bulldog segment of the crowd of 3,079 and the lively UMD pep band celebrated, and the Bulldogs were off and running. But Barrie, a left-handed goaltender, which means she wears her catching glove on her right hand, came up with most of the chances as UMD outshot the Saints 13-2 in the middle period. It wasn’t until 16:05 that the ‘Dogs scored again, this time when freshman Sanna Peura wedged the puck out off the right boards and Sikio broke for the pass, snapping a low shot through Barrie’s pads for her 34th of the season.
Five minutes into the third period, Rooth came into the zone just in time to pick off a careless outlet pass, and she rushed in but had her shot blocked by Barrie. Alexander, however, banged the rebound in at 5:22, and the Bulldogs were in command.
“I kept telling the players to keep going, but I couldn’t get them to,” said Miller afterward. “You know that’s not my style.”
While the Bulldogs wound up outshooting St. Lawrence 35-31 for the game, they let the Saints have a 17-8 edge in the third period, which made for a strong finish with Navada Russell taking a penalty and St. Lawrence coach Paul Flanagan pulling Barrie for an extra skater with 1:30 left. Freshman Gina Kingsbury, who was the Saints most dynamic player all weekend, got the puck out to the right point and Chartrand walked in and fired a shot that skipped once through traffic and found the net.
But only 54 seconds remained and the Bulldogs weren’t about to let this historic opportunity slip away.
“I couldn’t be prouder of my team,” said St. Lawrence coach Paul Flanagan, who, like Miller, is only in his second year. “We were picked for sixth in the ECAC at the start of the season, and for us to come this far, to this game, makes quite a statement for our program. Congratulations to Duluth, they are a very worthy champion. They did a great job from start to finish, and they were very well-coached and well-prepared for us.
“We had hoped to create a forecheck, so we could use our strength, which is cycling the puck low. But they did a great job of taking that away from us.”
ROOTH, PUPUTTI, RALPH
MAKE ALL-TOURNAMENT
Maria Rooth was most valuable player and a member of the all-tournament team, where she was joined by teammates Tuula Puputti in goal and Brittny Ralph on defense. St. Lawrence forward Amanda Sargeant and defenseman Isabelle Chartrand also made the team, which was rounded out by forward Tammy Shewchuk of Harvard.
HARVARD 3,
DARTMOUTH 2
Harvard got two goals from Kalen Ingram in support of Tammy Shewchuk’s first-minute tally and the Crimson went on to defeat Dartmouth 3-2 in a lively third-place game of the NCAA women’s hockey tournament. The two Ivy League rivals shook off the disappointment of Friday’s semifinal losses and went at each other aggressively.
When it was over, Harvard, which came into the weekend ranked No. 3, dealt the second straight loss to Dartmouth, which had come in after riding the No. 1 slot virtually all season. The Crimson wind up 24-10, Dartmouth 26-5-1.
“This was a typical Harvard-Dartmouth game,” said Dartmouth coach Judy Oberting. “We have a great rivalry. The loss doesn’t hurt as much as Friday’s. Also, it’s the end for six players, which hurts a lot more than losing a game that was so hard-fought.”
Shewchuk’s goal off an Ingram pass at 1:00 was offset when Kristina Guarinolo tied it at 16:34, but Ingram scored from amid a pile of bodies at the Dartmouth goal at 17:18 to leave Harvard up 2-1 at intermission. Carly Haggard tied it for the feisty Dartmouth team on a goal-crashing rush at 6:20 of the second period, but Ingram scored with Laura McAuliffe’s 3-on-2 pass at 16:11. From there on, Harvard goalie Jessica Ruddick outshined Meaghan Cahill of Dartmouth to hold the lead through a scorelee third period.
An interesting feature of the game was that Jennifer Botterill, who Saturday night was named Patty Kazmeier Award winner as the best player in women’s college hockey, was held without a point for the first time in her college career — an 80-game streak snapped. But the junior winger did it with typical style. With Cahill pulled for a sixth Dartmouth attacker, Botterill got the puck on the right boards at center ice and five seconds remaining. She could have shot for the empty net, but instead she just kept the puck along the boards until the buzzer. Harvard didn’t need another goal, and obviously the individual streak meant nothing to Botterill.
Bulldogs, Saints square off to decide first NCAA women’s title
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—UMD women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller came into the NCAA Frozen Four prepared to win the whole thing, so it meant walking the fine line between preparation and any assumptions. So while preparing to face Harvard in Friday’s semifinals, Miller also did a thorough investigation of No. 1 ranked Dartmouth, which was playing in the other semifinal.
The Bulldogs came through, erupting for five third-period goals to beat Harvard 6-3, but their chance to knock Dartmouth out of the season-long No. 1 spot can’t happen — the Green Wave was upset 3-1 by St. Lawrence in the first semifinal.
So UMD will go after the institution’s first-ever NCAA championship today at 5 p.m. against St. Lawrence at Mariucci Arena. Dartmouth and Harvard will tangle in the 1 p.m. third-place game.
“In our first year, we set a goal of reaching the final four, and we did that,” said Miller. “This year we set a goal of winning the final four. The fact that we’re playing St. Lawrence definitely does not mean we have any comfort level. It means I have to spend some long hours studying tapes of St. Lawrence, because all my preparation was done for Dartmouth.”
UMD ( 27-5-4) got their first taste of St. Lawrence (24-7-3) in the season-opening series at the DECC, back in October. Nobody knew what to expect from the Bulldogs, who were playing their first games without Jenny Schmidgall, who took the year off to have a baby. But UMD whipped the Saints 7-0 in that opener, as Maria Rooth scored a hat trick. The next night, UMD played a better game, but fell behind 2-0 in the first period and had to rally for a 4-3 victory, with Erika Holst scoring the tying goal with 7:46 left and Laurie Alexander scoring with 3:58 to go to win it.
“That was way back on the first weekend in October, and while we learned a lot about our opposition, we also learned a lot about ourselves,” said Paul Flanagan, who, like Miller, is in only his second year as head coach at St. Lawrence — a school in only the fourth year of its women’s hockey program. “I was impressed with UMD in October. They have size, and a lot of strength with that size, as well as speed and skill, and they’re very well-coached.
“Last night, against Harvard, I saw what I expected from them. We’re sky-high coming off beating Dartmouth, but it gives us a huge emotional shot being underdog and pulling off an upset.”
While the Saints are preparing for how to stop Rooth, who also scored a hat trick in the semifinal victory over Harvard, Miller said she has some plans to deploy against St. Lawrence.
“Our defense has to do a real good job,” Miller said. “Their top goal-scorer [Amanda Sargeant] will require some special attention, and I think this game could turn out to be a great goaltending duel. Tuula Puputti is playing really well for us, and their goaltender is a little lefty [Rachel Barrie] who looked really, really good against Dartmouth.”
Sargeant is a sophomore with 19 goals-20 assists for 39 points, and Barrie is a freshman in the nets. Sophomore Shannon Smith (11-24–35) and senior Caroline Trudeau (15-13–28) and junior Jessica Wilson (13-11–24) give the Saints good balance. Gina Kingsbury, another freshman, is a quick, feisty forward who has had a strong rookie year at 14-14–28.
Those stats are a far cry from UMD’s high-scoring contingent, led by Rooth (40-30–70), Hanne Sikio (33-34–67), Erika Holst (25-27–52), Joanne Eustace (15-24–39), Sanna Peura (17-21–38) and defenseman Satu Kiipeli (10-28–38).
Scoring statistics, of course, mean nothing now. When St. Lawrence upset Dartmouth, the Green Wave was the only ECAC team the Saints hadn’t beaten.
“That was important for us to beat a team we hadn’t beaten during the season,” said Sargeant. “Now there’s only one team left that we haven’t beaten this season.”
And that team will be lining up on the opposite bench at Mariucci Arena today at 5 p.m.
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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