How are the slopes?
Two teams from Hockey East traveled to Vail, Colo., to challenge a pair of WCHA schools. No. 2 Wisconsin had the best of the proceedings, winning twice.
Friday, the Badgers needed a late third-period rally to down Northeastern, 3-2. Brittany Ammerman scored the tying goal and assisted on the game-winner, the first by Jenny Ryan for Wisconsin.
Her team put No. 8 Boston University away much earlier on Saturday, wrapping up the scoring in a 5-0 triumph by the second intermission. Five Badgers scored; Sydney McKibbon and Blayre Turnbull added an assist with their tallies.
Boston University salvaged a split out of the weekend with its 2-0 win over St. Cloud State on Friday. Kerrin Sperry out-dueled Julie Friend with a 28-save shutout.
St. Cloud State also had a .500 weekend after winning a battle of the Huskies over Northeastern, 3-2. Julia Gilbert’s goal just past the midway point of the game proved decisive.
Fit to be tied
Top-10 clashes were plentiful this week. In a Friday game matching ECAC powers, No. 6 Harvard was unable to hold off No. 3 Cornell. The host Crimson took a first-period lead on goals by Miye D’Oench and Sydney Daniels. That held until the final frame, when the Big Red’s top line countered. Jillian Saulnier scored twice, tying the score at 2-2, and later, 3-3, after Mary Parker had put Harvard back on top. Jessica Campbell and Emily Fulton had two-point games as well for Cornell.
Both squads rebounded from the tie with two-goal wins on Saturday. Hanna Bunton led the way with a goal and two assists as the Big Red tripped Dartmouth, 4-2. Brianna Laing posted 21 saves as Harvard whitewashed Colgate, 2-0.
Snapped strings
On Saturday, No. 1 Minnesota ran its winning and unbeaten streaks to 62 with a 6-1 triumph over No. 4 North Dakota. That was also the 10th straight win over UND. Megan Wolfe scored twice and Hannah Brandt went beyond the 100-point barrier in her second season. All of those team streaks ended on Sunday when North Dakota got first-period markers from rookies Kayla Gardner, Gracen Hirschy, and Susanna Tapani, and the Gophers comeback came up one goal short.
Winless weekend
No. 5 Boston College was unable to find any traction versus No. 7 Quinnipiac and Princeton. Shiann Darkangelo’s second goal of the game with 2:03 to play proved decisive for the Bobcats in their 3-2 win. The Eagles and the Tigers traded power-play goals in a 1-1 tie. Haley Skarupa’s goal for BC was answered by Kelsey Koelzer a period later.
Kelly Babstock and Morgan Fritz-Ward scored late in the second and third periods, respectively, and Quinnipiac followed its BC win with one over New Hampshire. Chelse Laden backstopped both contests, and is the only goalie in the country yielding less than a goal per game on average.
How the rest of the top 10 fared
No. 10 Mercyhurst took three of four points from Syracuse, but that was only enough to forge a third-place deadlock in the CHA standings with the Orange. The Lakers needed a third-period goal by J’nai Mahadeo to earn the tie on Friday. Christie Cicero returned from a disqualification-mandated one-game suspension with a two-goal, one-assist effort in Mercyhurst’s 5-3 victory the next day.
No. 9 Clarkson recorded its first sweep in more than a month over Providence. Christine Lambert posted a hat trick on Saturday to highlight a Golden Knights’ weekend in which 14 of 16 skaters registered a point.
An even bigger mess
Some other teams that had been struggling enjoyed sweeps this weekend of opponents with even greater problems. Vermont scored nine goals to Maine’s two to keep the Black Bears winless. Minnesota-Duluth kept Ohio State trending downward with 3-2 and 2-0 wins. Bemidji State returned home from its conflict in Columbus to twice dump Minnesota State, 4-1 and 3-2. RIT gained a pair of one-goal decisions over Penn State to run its unbeaten streak to four games.
Yale got its first win of the year Friday and followed it up with another on Saturday. The Bulldogs stopped Rensselaer, 2-1, and Union, 6-4.
