MINNEAPOLIS — Ohio State cruised to a 5-0 win over Minnesota Duluth Friday afternoon to advance to their fifth-straight WCHA conference tournament championship game. The Buckeyes will be looking to regain the championship after losing to Minnesota in the title game last season.
After a back and forth opening few minutes, Ohio State scored two quick goals, putting Minnesota Duluth in a hole it was difficult to dig themselves out of.
First WCHA Rookie of the Year Joy Dunne showed off some of the moves that have her leading her team in goals, stick handling to the net front before slipping the puck past UMD goalie Hailey MacLeod. Just 44 seconds later, Kiara Zanon hit at a loose puck while MacLeod held to the post, but somehow the puck managed to sneak under her and into the net to make it a 2-0 game.
It was exactly the kind of game Ohio State has come to be known for. They held possession, moved the puck, found their lanes and never let Minnesota Duluth get comfortable on offense. The Buckeyes gained confidence from the quick goals and put UMD back on their heels on defense, making it even more difficult for the Bulldogs to find an offensive rhythm.
“Very proud of them tonight. Getting five goals on any team in this league, especially in the playoffs, is very impressive. But the zero is just as impressive,” said Ohio State coach Nadine Muzerall.
Minnesota Duluth has had one of the most successful goaltending tandems in the country this season. When Ohio State scored two quick goals, it pushed the Bulldogs out of their comfort zone and UMD coach Maura Crowell said she thought her team struggled to recover.
“Our goaltending has been so good, we’ve had so many shutouts that when a couple of goals go in, it did affect our team. Goals are going to go in, we’re playing the best teams. This is the reality and being able to bounce back from that. We’re still learning. It’s March but we just learned a really valuable lesson that’s going to help us as we go on in the season,” said Crowell.
Crowell was happy with her team’s play through the first period and the game might have looked different if not for a couple of point-blank saves by Raygan Kirk on a Minnesota Duluth power play, but i was the third goal early in the third that really seemed to take the Bulldogs out of the game. Ohio State used that to build on their forecheck, hemming UMD into their own zone and preventing them from creating much offensively.
Emma Peschel and Makenna Webster gave Ohio State a 4-0 lead in the second and Olivia Mobley closed out the scoring in the third. Buckeye captain Jenn Gardiner noted that a mid-afternoon Friday game didn’t bring a ton of excitement from the crowd, but said she feels one of her squad’s best attributes is their ability to hype each other up and create excitement on the bench. She said any nerves the team had were channeled into positive energy on the ice.
The shutout was Kirk’s eighth of the season. The grad student has started 21 games for the Buckeyes this season after playing in just 15 over her previous two in Columbus, where she transferred from Robert Morris. Muzerall praised her netminder for the work she put in prior to her final college season to win the opportunity to start a game like this.
“Kirk earned her time,” Muzerall said, noting that having a reliable goalie like Kirk in net makes the rest of the players on the ice more comfortable.
Ohio State awaits the winner of the second semifinal between Minensota and Wisconsin. Based on their current Pairwise rankings, it’s expected that all four of these teams will receive bids to the NCAA Tournament, though Crowell’s Bulldogs are in the most precarious position and she said she won’t feel confident until she sees her team’s name on Selection Sunday.
That all their seasons are unlikely finished means that the weekend’s games are for a trophy, but are also just one more step in a process they hope doesn’t end for a couple more weeks. And that makes them a chance for teams to get better.
“We’ll learn a lot from this game. From here on out we’re going to be playing great teams. Stuff isn’t going to go our way the whole time,” said Muzerall.
“Sometimes those pucks are going to go in, but just being able to reset and look forward is going to be crucial for us.”
