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MINNEAPOLIS – Junior Dani Cameranesi netted her third career hat trick to aid Minnesota to a 6-3 victory over visiting Yale.
“Yale is a new team for us that we don’t play a whole lot,” coach Brad Frost said. “To play a team from the East is always fun.”
Cameranesi scored her third goal 12 minutes into the second period to up the lead to 5-1 for Minnesota (12-1-0, 9-1-0-0 WCHA). Her linemates, Sarah Potomak and Hannah Brandt, had three-point games as well, with a goal and two assists.
“We were matching that line up against their second line there, and obviously, they got the better of it tonight,” Frost said. “To have her start quick like that was great.”
The Gophers also got a goal from Kelly Pannek to open the scoring and two assists from Kate Schipper.
The Bulldogs (1-5-1, 1-2-1 ECAC Hockey) countered with markers from Courtney Pensavalle, Eden Murray, and Phoebe Staenz.
“I think that first line with Potomak, Cameranesi, and Brandt are lethal,” coach Joakim Flygh said. “They’re really hard to play against. They come with speed and tenacity all their lines, so it was something we hadn’t really seen all year. It took us some time to get used to it, but once we did, I thought we did a better job of pushing back.”
A game after setting a new mark for points by a Gopher, Brandt’s two helpers established a program record for assists with 145.
Yale rallied with a goal late in the second period and one early in the third to close to within 5-3, but seconds after a potential tripping penalty on a Gopher when uncalled, Brandt capitalized on that break to provide the final margin.
“It’s part of the game sometimes; things happen,” Flygh said. “That wasn’t the deciding factor of the game, I don’t think.”
Still, who knows what might have happened had the Bulldogs gone on the power play down by just a couple, having converted on both of their previous chances with the advantage.
“We felt we did some good things as the game went along,” Flygh said. “We’ll take the positives, and hopefully, we can make some adjustments tomorrow and come out and start the game like we finished.”
Although the Gophers were happy to get the win, they have things to improve as well.
“We were too careless with the puck tonight,” Frost said. “There were a couple areas that we need to get better at; puck management is certainly the number one thing on the list. We were trying too many drop passes, too many cute plays at center ice, and then trying for too many home-run passes as well.”
