The University of Minnesota and University Wisconsin faced off in a series between two of the top women's hockey teams in the nation. Here's a look at what went down.
The University of Wisconsin and University of Minnesota entered the first instalment of their annual border battle in Madison, Wisconsin, and left the weekend with a split. Wisconsin entered as the top ranked team in the nation, while Minnesota entered third.
Both teams are loaded with national team players and PWHL prospects setting up what many anticipated would be one of the best series' of the season, and the Badgers and Golden Gophers did not disappoint. The teams played to a split over the weekend with Minnesota winning game one 5-1, and Wisconsin bouncing back for a 7-2 win in game two.
To open the series, Minnesota rode a strong third period to earn their first win in Wisconsin in recent reasons.
“It’s the first time that we’ve won here in a long time,” said Minnesota head coach Brad Frost following the game. “I’m just really proud of our group, our staff, how we prepared our players, but mostly in how they played, especially in the third period. Hannah Clark was amazing, which allowed us to get our feet going and blow it open there in the third.”
Clark made 40 saves in the win, while Josefin Bouveng scored twice, and Sydney Morrow, Sienna D'Alessandro, and Abbey Murphy scored for Minnesota. Cassie Hall had Wisconsin's lone goal to open the scoring. Wisconsin head coach Mark Johnson was not pleased with his team's play.
"The response wasn't good from our end and so it's an opportunity to talk about some things and get people to understand a few more," said Mark Johnson. "And then you get challenged, you know, there's still a lot of hockey to be played."
Johnson added that he expected his team to respond when they faced Minnesota for game two of the series, and they did.
In the second game of their weekend series, Wisconsin struck immediately with Maggie Scannell scoring for the Badgers only 14 seconds into the game. Less than two minutes later, Kirsten Simms doubled Wisconsin's lead and the Badgers never looked back en route to a 7-2 win.
Kelly Gorbatenko finished the night for Wisconsin with two goals and an assist, while Caroline Harvey and Simms each had a goal and two helpers, and Laila Edwards and Scannell, each had a goal and a helper.
"We talked about what kind of response we wanted after we got challenged after last night's game, and we accepted the challenge and obviously got off to a good start," said Johnson. "The effort, the commitment, the things that we had talked about after last night's game in the morning, we went out and executed."
Wisconsin now enters a bye week, which will allow key members of their roster to travel to Cleveland and Buffalo to represent USA at the Rivalry Series.