DULUTH — The Minnesota Gophers advanced to the WCHA Tournament Championship game with a 6-2 win over Ohio State Friday evening at AmSoil Arena. It was the second come-from-behind win of the day in Duluth as the Gophers scored six unanswered goals after the Buckeyes jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
“It was just some really good, smart, hard hockey by our team, angling with our feet, taking away their time and space, making them go 200 feet. I’m really proud of our group and excited for the opportunity to win a championship tomorrow,” said Minnesota coach Brad Frost.
Jocelyn Amos and Joy Dunne each lit the lamp for OSU in the opening ten minutes of the game and it looked like the Buckeyes were in control. But penalties late in the frame gave Minnesota a player advantage and they did not let the opportunities pass them by.
First Abbey Murphy found herself with time and space at the bottom of the far faceoff circle, giving her a chance to pick her spot to make it 2-1. The goal was the 100th of her career, making her just the seventh Gopher to reach that milestone.
Less than five minutes later Minnesota was again on the power play and a similar play developed, though this time Murphy unloaded a slap shot from the top of the circle. The puck hit the crossbar and post before dropping into the crease where Ella Huber quickly cleaned up the rebound to tie the game.
Ohio State seemed to deflate in the face of the Gopher response, allowing Minnesota even more space and never really getting dangerous shots in on Hannah Clark and the UM defense.
“Our group knows that Ohio State likes to get those dirty, net-front goals. One of our big focuses was a strong defensive zone. We wanted to box out, not let them get shots, not let them get rebounds. After we went down 2-0, we really locked it down and all their opportunities kind of came from those high shots, wide areas, and then we were able to not allow any rebounds,” said Gopher defender Sydney Morrow.
In the second, Audrey Wethington and Natálie Mlýnková took advantage of the deflated OSU defense as they easily passed through the neutral zone and Wethington was at the doorstep to tip in the pass Mlýnková sent her. Ava Lindsay scored on an odd-player rush midway through the game, opting to take it herself and snap a wrister to extend the lead.
The turning point in the game came early in the third period as Minnesota held a 4-2 lead. Chloe Primerano and Ella Huber were sent to the penalty box 31 seconds apart, giving Ohio State a long 5-on-3 opportunity that they were unable to capitalize on.
“I got so much energy from that 5-on-3. The game was not over at that point and they still could have come back with that and our PK was just absolutely killer. The momentum we got from that was just insane. I think that that was the moment where I was like, ‘hell, yeah,’” said Murphy.
For Ohio State, whiffed shots and missed opportunities during the advantage just felt like a culmination of everything that went wrong the rest of the game.
“When everything goes bad, it just continuously falls apart and that just kind of seemed to be the problem. We just couldn’t dig ourselves out of a hole that we put ourselves into,” said coach Nadine Muzerall.
Murphy punctuated her excitement by cleaning up a loose put after chaos at the net to extend the lead to 5-2 and put the game out of reach. Murphy now leads the country with 31 goals so far this season.
An empty-netter from Chloe Primerano closed out the win for Minnesota.
The loss was a gut-punch for Ohio State, who has spent most of the season ranked #2 in the country.
“We have a game plan, and that was not it tonight. We didn’t stick to it,” said Jocelyn Amos.
Joy Dunne said the team was prepared to watch the game tape and learn from it, but then erase the game, move on and do better.
Coach Nadine Muzerall was less concerned with the outcome and more concerned with how her team handled the game, especially as Minnesota started to push back.
“I guess for me the disappointing thing is we quit,” said Muzerall.
“If we’re going to lose, we will fight. If we lose, we’ll take it on the chin, but we never quit, and we did that tonight.”
Both Minnesota and Ohio State have ensure their will host a regional during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Minnesota will play Wisconsin on Saturday for the WCHA Tournament Championship at 2 pm central.
