Minnesota defeated St. Cloud State by a 5-1 score in the championship game of the first Minnesota Cup for women’s hockey.
“It’s fun to be the champions of the inaugural Minnesota Cup,” Gophers coach Brad Frost said. “Glad to be a part of it, and a good start to 2019.”
The Gophers got a pair of goals each from Grace Zumwinkle and Taylor Heise, after Taylor Wente opened the scoring on a deflection.
Abby Thiessen tallied the Huskies’ lone goal at 9:32 of the second period after her shot deflected into the net off of a Minnesota stick to make the score 3-1.
St. Cloud State goaltender Janine Alder finished with 45 saves and was named to the all-tournament team. Joining her were her SCSU teammate Abby Thiessen and Minnesota State’s Anna Wilgren on defense, UMD forward Gabby Hughes, Minnesota forward Taylor Williamson, and Zumwinkle, who was also named the event’s most outstanding player.
“I think she was at another level this weekend,” Frost said.
Zumwinkle notched three goals for the tournament and her season total of 16 leads her team.
“It doesn’t matter who scores,” Zumwinkle said. “We just like setting each other up and having fun together.”
Heise scored the first of her goals at 5:51 of the opening period off a pass from Emily Oden to make it 2-0, and the Huskies weren’t able to get to within a goal the rest of the way. They did enjoy some extended time in the offensive zone after Zumwinkle scored on a power play, including the Thiessen goal.
However, Zumwinkle drove the net and banged home a centering feed from Williamson 48 seconds into the final stanza, and the outcome was never in doubt the rest of the way. SCSU pulled Alder for an extra attacker with 2:36 remaining, but Heise took advantage of the empty net to complete the scoring 57 seconds later.
“We came out with so much fire today,” Heise said. “Once you have that little break, I think we were all just super excited to get back and be with each other.”
Heise added an assist to lead the way with three points. Nicole Schammel also had a multipoint game with a pair of helpers, and Sydney Scobee made 22 stops to earn the win.
“We hopefully are going to get to play in four tournaments this year, and we’re just going to do our best to win all of them,” Heise said.
For Minnesota, it is two down, two to go, after adding the Minnesota Cup to the Windjammer Classic trophy that it won in Vermont in November.
St. Cloud State advanced to the final by winning a shootout over Minnesota State on Saturday.
With the two teams tied at 2-2 after regulation and a scoreless five-minute overtime, the Huskies’ Jenniina Nylund scored the only goal in three shootout rounds.
“With those two goalies, we joked on the bench, we could have gone through our whole lineup twice,” SCSU coach Eric Rud said. “That was a big goal. She’s had a great freshman year for us, and I think it was nice for her to get that capper there.”
Corbin Boyd had given the Mavericks a 2-1 lead when replay showed the puck in the net just before the second-period clock turned to zero.
“We were able to get after our team after that goal and talk about competing and talk about how we need to compete shift to shift, and I thought we responded in the third and played great,” Rud said.
Abby Thiessen forged the tie with an extra-attacker goal at 18:52 of the third period.
“I thought the players on the ice did an outstanding job of getting their head up, making a play, not just shoveling it at the net, and I thought we got rewarded with a real nice goal,” Rud said.
The second semifinal also went to overtime, where Olivia Knowles’ shot from the right point hit the net over Maddie Rooney’s shoulder to give Minnesota a 4-3 victory over Minnesota-Duluth.
“I did just try to get it on net, and we had a moving screen, I believe, and it went in,” Knowles said. “I wouldn’t say that it was a hard shot, but the best thing about it was that it was on net, and it found its way to the back of the net. Very grateful it went in and thankful that we got the win there.”
The Bulldogs had twice battled back from one-goal deficits, including Sydney Brodt’s tally with 5:05 left in regulation, after Zumwinkle had put the Gophers up six minutes earlier.
“Credit to Duluth,” Frost said. “They dominated us at times. We haven’t been hemmed in our zone and had that many turnovers and bad changes in a long, long time.”
In the third place game, UMD outscored the Mavericks, 4-0, in the third period to rally for a 5-3 triumph.
“We’re thrilled to be showcasing another premier event for the WCHA,” league commissioner Katie Million said. “Certainly excited for all of the fans that have come out and supported the event.”
Sunday’s championship drew 1,489 fans, after a crowd of 2,256 for the semifinal round.
“You never know who is going to come out on top in any given weekend, and this weekend proved the same,” Million said.
Three of the four games on the weekend went down to the final minute of regulation, with both semifinals requiring overtime.
“Hopefully, we can keep this tournament going,” Frost said. “I think it’s good for all of the Minnesota teams to continue to do that. If we get an eighth team back in the league, this will probably dissolve, as the nonconference games are so scarce.”
Bemidji State, the fifth team from the state, was not in the tournament field, and instead swept a nonconference series versus Union.
