It was business as usual for the No. 2 Wisconsin Badgers (20-1-1 WCHA, 26-1-1 overall) at LaBahn Arena, where they took down St. Cloud State (7-12-3, 11-13-3) 3-0 to finish off the series, and season, sweep of the Huskies.
Sophomore forward Emily Clark was pleased with the way the team performed this weekend against a much improved St. Cloud side.
“I think [the series] went well,” Clark said. “They are a tough team to play against. Our goal was to start strong and I think we did that. It was a tough weekend so I’m glad we could come away with six points.”
Unlike the game on Saturday where the Badgers got on the board in the opening minutes, chances weren’t as easily found for Wisconsin, who went into the second period still tied 0-0 today.
Wisconsin is the best penalty-killing team in the nation, but they took it one step further in the second period when junior forward Sarah Nurse won the puck near the Badgers’ own blue line and flew up the ice, eventually going top shelf to beat the Huskies’ goalie and give UW its first goal of the game. The goal was Nurse’s third shorthanded goal of the season, tied for the second most in the country.
Finding themselves up only by a single goal for the second game in a row, the Badgers found their answer for offense in Clark. She and freshman forward Sam Cogan had a great combination to find themselves in a 2-on-1 down the right side. Cogan got the defender to commit and then dropped it to Clark in the middle who put the puck in the back of the net to give the Badgers a two-goal lead.
Not much later Clark and Cogan were back at it, as another good combination resulted in a shot on goal, with the consequent rebounded being collected by Clark and redirected into the goal, assisted by Cogan.
After not getting any of her chances to go early in the game, Clark was happy to break through twice late in the game.
“I was struggling a little bit, I had a few chances that just weren’t going my way,” Clark said. “Those last two shifts, Sam [Cogan] made a great drop pass to me for the first one and the second one Annie [Pankowski] and Sam did a great job and I just kind of picked up the scraps.”
Clark and Cogan are not normally on the same line, but coach Mark Johnson made some adjustments in the third period that clearly made an impact on the game.
“We made some adjustments and it paid off in the third period,” Johnson said. “Cogan set up a couple nice goals and Clark was able to capitalize on a couple nice plays by Cogan and Annie [Pankowski]. They had a pretty good rhythm and it was just a different look that helped us out.”
The defense was stellar all game, but especially in the third period, limiting the Huskies to a single shot on goal in the period, making the job of junior goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens very easy.
“We saw it in the third period today, they only allowed one shot which was pretty big,” Desbiens said. “We came up with a lot of possession time and we were able to stay in the offensive zone. They were blocking a lot of shots and that was really big for us.”
The shutout put Desbiens in sole possession of the third-most shutouts in NCAA history with 31. Johnson was naturally pleased with her performance, especially Desbiens’ ability to stay focused in a game where she wasn’t very busy.
“She’s been focused the last couple of weekends,” Johnson said. “And even though she wasn’t tested heavily today, there was some key moments, and sometimes it’s more challenging to play in a game where you aren’t getting a lot of action. She seems to be comfortable and hopefully it continues on.”
The sweep gives Wisconsin 62 points in the standings, holding a five-point lead over the second place Minnesota Golden Gophers with only a few series left to play.
The Badgers are back in action next weekend when they travel to Columbus to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes.
