The No. 3 Wisconsin Badgers (1-0-0 WCHA, 3-0-0 overall) continued their fast start from this past weekend by beginning conference play with a dominating performance in a 7-0 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes (0-1-0, 2-1-0) Saturday afternoon.
The Wisconsin offense has been off to a hot start so far this year, leading the nation with 6.5 goals per game. That trend continued against the Buckeyes, as UW torched the opposing defense in the first of two matchups with nine different players registering at least one point and with five separate Badgers finding the back of the net.
UW sophomore forward Annie Pankowski added three more points to her stat line with two goals and one assist for an early season total of eight points in just three games.
Wisconsin sophomore forward Emily Clark had an even bigger night, contributing two assists in addition to scoring the Badger’s second and third goals of the contest.
While both Clark and Pankowski had excellent individual games, it was the combination of the two that proved too much for the outmatched OSU defense and goalkeeper when the pair assisted each other on three out of four of their combined goals. The potent combo showed special chemistry on a drop pass from Pankowski to Clark, which got the defense out of position allowing Clark to quickly feed it back to her for a picture perfect score.
“We have a lot more confidence in each other I think,” Pankowski said of the chemistry between herself and Clark. “We’re just having a lot of fun out there.”
She also noted that the chemistry paid off on her highlight reel goal.
“Em and I, and Baylee (Wellhausen) too, have all been working on stuff like that in practice,” Pankowski said. “It was just another play.”
Head coach Mark Johnson was pleased with not just the offense, but their defense and penalty kill as well. Wisconsin’s PK unit killed off three penalties in the first period, including a 5-on-3 opportunity for the Buckeyes.
“The penalty kill did a good job,” Johnson said. “We played with good pace.”
Johnson also praised Pankowski, who notched a shorthanded goal.
“Now she’s got a role where she’s got to do some of that. If you’ve got hockey sense and can figure out what’s going on with the puck and what’s happening with it, you can create turnovers,” Johnson said of Pankowski, who already has three shorthanded goals this season. “That’s how she’s been able to score.”
Though the Badgers dominated the match on both ends against their foe on Saturday afternoon, Johnson is focused on improvement moving forward.
“We’re only three games into the season, it’s a building process, but the early signs are if you can do that, you can continue to get better,” Johnson said. “We all go to bed tonight and wake up and we start a new day and it’s a new game for both teams, we need to continue to build on what we started here.”
