Top-ranked Wisconsin found themselves in a situation that they hadn’t faced much throughout the season when North Dakota arrived at LaBahn Arena Saturday afternoon—a physical game.
“Give them credit, they came in and played hard and gave themselves an opportunity and a pretty good college game—one with a physical component that we haven’t seen a lot of this year,” head coach Mark Johnson said. “But we battled through and did what we needed to do and finished pretty strong.”
Wisconsin (16-2-1 WCHA, 21-2-1 overall) withstood a furious late-game rally to defeat North Dakota (9-6-4, 12-8-5) by a score of 3-2 to extend their winning streak to seven games.
The Badgers grabbed the lead midway through the first period as senior forward Sarah Nurse redirected Maddie Rolfes shot past North Dakota goalie Lexie Shaw. Three minutes later, the Fighting Hawks added the equalizer as Gracen Hirschy beat Badgers senior goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens.
UW controlled the puck for much of the second period, limiting UND to just three shots on goal. After a flurry of penalties, the Badgers took advantage of a four-on-three opportunity as Jenny Ryan sniped the puck past Shaw to give the Badgers the lead. Minutes later, junior forward Annie Pankowski weaved her way across the ice for an impressive breakaway goal for what would be the eventual game-winner.
“My first thought was to make sure that the defenseman didn’t take the puck from me, and my second thought was to try to get the puck to the net,” Pankowski said. “You’ve just got to focus on beating that first player and then beating the goalie after that.”
Tensions again flared-up in the third period, as both teams took penalties at the same time, at both the 12:48 and 15:24 marks. Each team was whistled for roughing once, while North Dakota had a goalie interference penalty and the Badgers had a holding call.
North Dakota would rally late and add a goal with under three minutes left in the period. After a barrage of shots, Desbiens and the Badger defense were able to hold on for the 3-2 victory.
Both teams were called for eight penalties in the game, with three of those occurring at the same time.
“We always know that North Dakota gives us a good game, regardless of how their season has gone,” Ryan said. “So it’s really a true test of our character and our strength that we need to battle through just being close that we’re maybe not used to, and battle through the physicalness of the game.”
Pankowski was pleased with the way her squad has overcome obstacles during the season.
“For this team, the theme of the year has been adversity,” Pankowski said. “I think, having said that, this team has been really good about rallying behind each other, even when we do have that adversity, it’s easy for us to be like ‘OK, we gotta go, let’s do what’s next.’”
The Badgers wrap up the series Sunday at 12 p.m., at LaBahn Arena.
