The NCAA women's hockey Frozen Four is set with Colgate, Clarkson, Ohio State, and Wisconsin, who will compete for a national title this week.
Ohio State, Clarkson, Wisconsin, and Colgate will compete for a national championship at the NCAA Frozen Four in New Hampshire after each school punched their ticket to the tournament this weekend.
In the first quarterfinal of the weekend familiar WCHA foes Ohio State and Minnesota-Duluth faced off in a lopsided affair. It only took Jocelyn Amos 22 seconds to open the scoring and the Ohio State Buckeyes never looked back advancing with a 9-0 win. Hannah Bilka and Olivia Mobley each scored twice in the win while Jordan Baxter, Joy Dunne, Hadley Hartmetz, and Kelsey King also scored. Defenders Cayla Barnes and Stephanie Markowski each had two assists in the win; with Barnes finishing a team high +5 in the win.
The closest game of the day came between Minnesota and Clarkson, a game which required four overtime periods to decide a winner. Minnesota jumped out to an early two goal lead on goals by Josefin Bouveng and Ella Huber, but Clarkson would settle in and fight their way back. Haley Winn opened Clarkson’s comeback, before Dominque Petrie scored the tying goal in the third period with under two minutes to go and their net empty for the extra attacker. The teams traded chances through three overtime periods until Clarkson went to the powerplay in the fourth overtime. With the player advantage, Petrie scored her second goal of the game, with Winn picking up her third point of the night to complete the comeback and lift Clarkson to the marathon 3-2 win. Clarkson netminder Michelle Pasiechnyk made 61 saves in the win.
Continuing on her late season and playoff dominance, Wisconsin’s Laila Edwards scored two goals and added an assist in Wisconsin’s 4-0 shutout win over St. Lawrence to book their spot in the Frozen Four, and continue their quest to repeat as national champions. Casey O’Brien opened the scoring in the game, while Sarah Wozniewicz had the other Badgers goal and Kirsten Simms had three assists. In net Ava McNaughton stopped 25 shots for the shutout.
In the final quarterfinal Colgate made their way to the Frozen Four beating Cornell 3-1. Ally Simpson, Krystina Kaltounkova, and Elyssa Biederman provided the offense for Colgate.
Ohio State will now face Clarkson while Wisconsin will take on Colgate in the Frozen Four on March 22, with the winners set to play for a national title on March 24.