Wisconsin women’s hockey: UW pours in 14 goals, sweeps St. Cloud State

The No. 1 Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team (8-2-0 overall, 8-2-0-1 WCHA) proved that their top ranking is no fluke sweeping the St. Cloud State Huskies (3-9-1 overall, 3-9-1-0 WCHA) in two very different wins over the weekend.

On Friday afternoon, the Badgers literally could not stop scoring and beat SCSU 10-0 while in the second game on Saturday UW didn’t have the lead until 1:17 left in the game and ended up with a 4-2 victory.

The Badgers offense was so prolific on Friday that we literally had to stop tweeting about the goals because they were being scored too quickly. Daryl Watts and Brette Pettet each had hat tricks while Watts added three assists and Pettet had one. Britta Curl, Lacey Eden, Sophie Shirley and Caitlin Schneider all scored as well while Chayla Edwards tied Watts with three assists too.

The Huskies only mustered three shots in the first period but were down just 1-0 as Sanni Ahola made 11 saves for SCSU. Things, uh, got worse from then on for the St. Cloud goalie as she was chased after giving up five goals on 21 shots in the middle frame. Backup Emma Polusny fared no better, allowing four goals in the third period to end the scoring at 10.

Wisconsin peppered the SCSU netminders with 49 shots in the entire game and went 3-for-5 on the power play. UW goalie Kennedy Blair had a relaxing night, stopping all eight shots she saw in just over 30 minutes of playing time. She was removed, since the game was already decided, for backup Breanna Blesi who stopped all seven shots she faced.

“The second and third periods were real good. We scored some goals with intelligent plays and good passing and did little things to create those opportunities. Overall it was a great game, everybody got a lot of ice time and everybody worked hard building off of what we did last week and continued the process,” head coach Mark Johnson said after the game.

The game on Saturday was far different that Friday’s blowout. The Huskies came out with a new game plan and executed it perfectly. Just over two minutes into the game, SCSU finally solved Blair and scored the game’s opening goal. Sophie Shirley scored in the final minute of the period to even the score, but it was clear that the Huskies weren’t going to get blown out of the water again.

About halfway through the second period, Nicole LaMantia received a five minute major and game misconduct for checking from behind and the Huskies were able to capitalize by scoring their second goal of the game. Only giving up one goal on the extended power play seemed to energize the Badgers and after they killed it off, Shirley scored again to make it 2-2 heading into the final period.

The Badgers dominated play in the third but weren’t able to get on the board until 1:17 was left and freshman Lacey Eden scored in the slot from her knees to give the Badgers their first lead of the game. “It feels good to put one home at the end, especially after a really back and forth game,” Eden said.

Watts added an empty netter to put an exclamation on a high-powered offensive weekend and give the Badgers the 4-2 win and their 27th consecutive win over SCSU.

Watts not only extended her point streak to 10 games on Saturday, but she also tallied her 100th career goal. She also leads the NCAA in scoring with 21 points. Blair had 21 saves on 23 shots. She currently leads the WCHA with eight wins and is second in the NCAA.

The Badgers have a bye next weekend but then head to the Twin Cities to take on the No. 2 ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers on Feb. 5 and Feb. 6.