MADISON, Wis. — The No. 1 ranked Wisconsin Badger women’s hockey team extended their home unbeaten streak to 25 games Saturday afternoon at LaBahn Arena with a 4-0 win over St. Cloud State. It was also their 14th straight win over the Huskies, dating back to 2015.
Badger coach Mark Johnson switched up some of his line pairings before Saturday’s game and then again as the game was in progress and the tinkering seemed to pay off. Sophomore Maddie Rowe, who spent time at defense for Wisconsin before moving to the offense this season, had her first collegiate two-goal game. It was only her second-ever two point outing.
“We just knew where each other was on the ice,” said Rowe. “We found each other’s sticks. I’m feeling really comfortable. It’s nice to have players who know what to do with the puck and know where to be and support you.”
Sophomore Abby Roque, who struggled a bit in Wisconsin’s series at Bemidji State last weekend, also found her footing back home in Madison. After tallying just five shots on the weekend and going -4 (she was +21 on the season heading into Saturday’s game) over the two games with no points, she scored, added an assist and had five shots on goal on Saturday.
Roque opened the scoring following up on a puck that had stopped dead in the crease. Alder couldn’t get to it and the defense cleared it right to Roque, who was crashing and lifted it home.
Rowe and Roque combined on the Badgers’ second goal was Roque carried the puck to the net and slid a cross-crease pass right to Rowe, who was open on the back post and tipped it in.
The Badgers’ third goal came off a long-distance shot by Maddie Rolfes from the right. Rowe was in the left circle to one-time the rebound home.
Presley Norby scored the fourth and final goal on a snipe that went top left corner shot to beat Alder just before the end of the second. Norby missed Wisconsin’s past two games with a lower body injury and hadn’t scored sinces Dec. 9 at St. Cloud.
Wisconsin tallied a season-high 57 shots and St. Cloud goalie Janine Adler’s 53 shots were a season-high for her. It was her fourth 40-plus save and ninth 30-plus outing this season. This was the highest shot count for the Badgers dating back to their 1/14/17 Fill the Bowl game against the Huskies in the Kohl Center where Adler made 61 saves in Wisconsin’s 2-0 win.
Adler was named to the Switzerland National Team roster for the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympics and will leave to join her team on Wednesday. Saturday afternoon’s performance was a heck of a warm up for her and should give Swiss fans positive thoughts for their chances in the Games. As St. Cloud coach Eric Rud said, she gave the Huskies a chance to hang in to Saturday’s game.
For Rud, it was a game of timing. Wisconsin came out and scored just 1:04 into the game and followed up with a second goal six minutes later. The third and fourth goals came within 3:22 of each other at the end of the second period. But between those spurts, he was happy with what he saw from his squad.
“We’ve gotten better and better as the season has gone. It was unfortunate there the last six minutes of that second period to give up two because we were right there for a little while. We were making some plays. The hard thing is creating offense against them. You’re not going to get many chances, and that’s fine, but when you do you have to make it count. There were a few times tonight where we had some good quality changes and you have to make it count, because you’re not going to get many,” said Rud.
The Huskies were able to hold possession in the Badger zone at times during the second period, but were unable to put much dangerous on net. That came in part because Wisconsin clogged up the center of the ice. The Badgers tallied 14 blocks on the evening – one more than the 13 shots on goal the Huskies were credited with by the end of the contest.
That made a big difference for Campbell.
“We really tightened things up from last weekend. We didn’t let them get to the blue paint like last weekend. The D really stepped up and played big today. They’re taking the shot lines and not giving them much opportunity,” she said.
The Badgers and Huskies will meet for the final time this regular season Sunday at 2 pm. The game will be televised on Fox Sports Wisconsin and streamed on Fox Sports GO.
