Wisconsin hockey: two Badgers named national players of the week

The Wisconsin Badgers had a wonderful weekend on the ice with the men’s team sweeping No. 9 Arizona State back to the warm American southwest and the women’s team clinching sole possession of the WCHA regular season title against No. 9 Minnesota Duluth.

When there are great team performances, there are often great individual performances and both teams got one to help their cause last weekend.

Sophomore forward Roman Achan was named both the B1G first star of the week AND the national first star of the week for his dominant weekend against the Sun Devils.

Over the weekend he scored both game-winning goals and recorded six points to lead the Badgers to a sweep, including his first career hat trick in the wild 7-6 victory on Friday night. Oh yeah, he also had two assists in that game. According to the B1G press release, his hat trick marked the first for the Badgers at home since defenseman Justin Schultz on Nov. 27, 2010 against Michigan State, while the five-point game was the Badgers’ first since Mark Zengerle had a goal and four assists against Mercyhurst on Nov. 25, 2011.

This was Wisconsin’s first conference honor since Jan. 14 when, you guessed it, Achan was named second star. The Badgers also featured the conference’s third star this week as freshman forward Alex Turcotte claimed that honor. He had five points on the weekend with two goals and one assist on Friday night and two more assists on Saturday night.

The WCHA champion women’s team had the national third star on the ice for them this past weekend as Daryl Watts added to her impressive resume.

Watts had a goal and an assist in Wisconsin’s 4-1 victory on Friday and then scored a goal and added three assists in a 5-5 comeback tie on Sunday afternoon that clinched the outright conference title for the Badgers. The goal she scored was the top play on Sunday’s SportsCenter and gave the Badgers an extra point in the WCHA standings so they ended up finishing two points ahead of the Minnesota Golden Gophers who, if I may add, finished in second place and not first.

Watts also finished the season as the leading scorer in the WCHA with 14 goals, 35 assists, 49 points in 24 games. Nothing like averaging more than two points per game in your first year in the conference.