The Wisconsin Badgers (21-3-0 overall, 11-3-0 WCHA) returned home to sold-out LaBahn Arena Friday night to host the St. Cloud State Huskies (8-16-2 overall, 3-12-0 WCHA). The Badgers shut out the Huskies 5-0 in the first game of the weekend, pouring in 44 shots on goal in the dominant victory.
Wisconsin entered the game with a 76-8-2 record against St. Cloud State dating back to 1999, and it won the last 39 of 40 matchups. Friday night’s contest did nothing to change that trend as the Badgers controlled play from the opening puck drop in their first home game since Dec. 2.
“I thought we got a lot of pucks to the net, and we competed for the whole 60 minutes, which is what coach talked about before the game,” junior defenseman Mekenzie Steffen said. “I thought we really brought our A-game today and it really showed out there.”
Wisconsin came out hard in the first period, with senior forward Annie Pankowski making history by assisting both junior forward Alexis Mauermann in the first six minutes and freshman forward Sophie Shirley in the last eight minutes. These two assists made her the seventh player in Badger history to record 100 assists in their career at Wisconsin.
“It's always great to reach a milestone like that, but you have to realize that those milestones don't come by yourself,” Pankowski said. “Certainly, assists are one I'm really grateful to my teammates for and without them, this wouldn't be as big of a milestone. When you come in and you can make a difference from your freshman year, that's super important and that's something I take a lot of pride in. I love to contribute to this team.”
To add onto the lead, seconds after the crowd chanted “thank you” to the announcer’s one minute warning to end the second period, Steffen slammed the puck in the back of the net right past St. Cloud State’s sophomore goalkeeper Emma Polusny. The next period, Steffen, assisted by freshman forward Britta Curl, scored her second goal of the game.
“Honestly, I don’t know [what was working],” Steffen said. “I was kinda just throwing pucks to the net, and we had a lot of bodies in front, and they ended up going in, so I'm pretty happy.”
Six seconds later, Shirley answered with her own goal in a record-setting time, assisted by junior forward Abby Roque. It was the shortest time between goals in Wisconsin history.
“It breaks the game open,” head coach Mark Johnson said. “It goes from three to five in a real quick fashion. Sophie's goal was a good example of what we've been working on during practice, stepping in front of her defenseman and getting a step on her and creating something.”
While coach was looking at the technical aspects of the game, the rest of the team was reveling in the historic moment.
“[The energy on the ice after Sophie scored] was unreal,” Steffen said. “I think that must be some kind of record or something. We had a lot of momentum going there. We had two goals and I think that really lifted our spirits for the whole rest of the game.”
With a dominant win under their belt, the Badgers were focused after the game on not looking past Saturday’s matchup against a St. Cloud squad looking to make up for the previous night’s result.
“[Tomorrow] they are going to come out hungry,” Pankowski said. “If we lost 5-0, we would certainly come out really hard. I think everybody's really excited about how we played tonight and I just hope that rolls into tomorrow.”
The puck is set to drop for a rematch Saturday at 6 p.m. at LaBahn Arena.
