DURHAM, NH — Ohio State will play in their third straight title game on Sunday after defeating Clarkson 4-1 Friday afternoon in Durham, NH.
Makenna Webster, Sloane Matthews, national rookie of the year Joy Dunne and Hadley Hartmetz scored for the Buckeyes to secure the win.
“What an exhilarating game. That’s a playoff game at its finest. A lot of credit to Clarkson. What a fantastic defensive side they have. Brilliant goaltending – a lot of credit to [Pasiechnyk],” said OSU coach Nadine Muzerall.
Clarkson came out strong against OSU and opened the scoring just 2:25 into the game when Brooke McQuigge brought the puck from behind the net and fed Anne Cherkowski, who turned and shot the puck past Buckeye goalie Raygan Kirk to give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead.
Ohio State coach Nadine Muzerall said her team started the game playing not to lose instead of playing to win, but that early goal seemed to wake her team up as they started to hold possession. But Clarkson’s stout defense clogged up the middle of the ice, not allowing the Buckeyes to pick up speed or move through the neutral zone the way they would have liked. OSU started to build a lead in shots on goal, but most of them came from the edges as they struggled early to find space in front of the net.
“We knew coming into this game that we’re going to have to weather some storms throughout the entirety of the game. I thought we did a good job with it. We were able to keep some things to the outside. We know they are a shot volume team. They love to get a lot of pucks towards the net. So for us, it was just staying calm, you know, even though they had possession in our zone quite a bit in that first period,” said Clarkson coach Matt Desrosiers.
Makenna Webster tied things up for the Buckeyes with just more than six minutes left in the first as Ohio State’s forecheck kept Clarkson from easily exiting the zone. Jenna Buglioni’s poke check created a turnover that put Webster in alone on Pasiechnyk where she slid the puck through the goalie’s legs to make it a 1-1 game.
“We felt that we were making pushes but just not capitalizing in the tight spaces around the net. We had faith in the girls. They were working real hard to create opportunities,” said Muzerall.
Ohio State outshot the Golden Knights 24-5 in the first, but headed to the locker room tied. They continued to pepper the net, adding 16 more shots in the 2nd and 13 in the third for a total of 53 shots on goal. Clarkson finished the game with 29 blocks while national goalie of the year Michelle Pasiechnyk racked up 49 saves. She was the standout for Clarkson, as expected, stopping several point-blank opportunities and keeping her team in the game.
“There were saves that I think all of our jaws were dropped,” said Ohio State forward Joy Dunne.
The Buckeyes finally broke through with about seven minutes left in regulation as Riley Brengman’s shot was stopped, but the puck was loose in the crease and Sloane Matthews put the rebound away to give her team a 2-1 edge. That seemed to break things open as Joy Dunne came down the ice and put away a wicked shot from the faceoff dot for an insurance goal to make it 3-1 with three minutes to play.
Dunne said her team was not frustrated and even as they scored goals, were not letting up.
“You just have to keep chipping away. We just have to treat it like the first five minutes of a game every time we go out there. We trusted one another,” she said.
Clarkson pulled their goalie to play with an extra attacker just 20 seconds later, but Ohio State had prepared for that situation, knowing how lethal the Golden Knights had been 6 on 5 this season. Hadley Hartmetz’s empty-net goal with 1:54 to play secured the win for OSU, who will await the winner of the second semifinal between Colgate and Wisconsin.
Despite the final score, Desrosiers said he was happy and proud of the game and season his team had played. They were facing the top team in the country and kept them to one goal for more than 46 minutes of hockey.
“I liked the way our team played. We stuck to the game plan that was exactly the type of game that we needed to play and we wanted to play and I thought we executed pretty well,” he said.
The national championship game is scheduled for Sunday at 4 p.m. EDT and will air live on ESPNU.
