Wisconsin Hosts Final Home Series of 2005
November 04, 2005 | Women's Hockey
The No. 3 Wisconsin women's hockey team will hold its final home games of the 2005 calendar year against Western Collegiate Hockey Association rival, St. Cloud State (2-4-0, 2-4-0 WCHA). The Friday-Saturday Kohl Center series will be the last for the Badgers (6-1-0, 4-1-0 WCHA) until Jan. 20, 2006, when they return from nearly two months of road contests.
Wisconsin has a winning record (22-3-0) against SCSU since competition began in 1999. During the 2004-05 season, the Badgers defeated the Huskies in each of their five meetings. Most recently, the Badgers defeated the Huskies 3-1 in the WCHA tournament quarterfinals en route to the championship game.
On the Badger side, junior forward Sara Bauer (St. Catharines, Ontario) was named by The Western Collegiate Hockey Association as the offensive conference player of the week, Monday. This is the first weekly honor of the season for Bauer, but her second offensive honor and fourth conference player of the week nod, with two honors as rookie of the week during the 2003-04 season.
UW went head-to-head against conference foe, North Dakota Oct. 28-29 at the Kohl Center. The Badgers swept the series with a 3-2 decision Friday followed by a commanding 8-0 shut out Saturday. The Fighting Sioux have not beaten the Badgers in the six times the teams have faced off. Last year marked the first ever match-up against the teams where Wisconsin accumulated a total of 26 goals against North Dakota. Ten of the current Badgers scored 18 of those goals against UND.
This season, the team is led by Bauer with 14 points. She earned her 100th point as a Badger with a short-handed goal on Oct. 29. She joins just four other Badgers to ever reach the mark. She currently ranks fifth on the all-time points list at UW. With just 76 more points over the next two seasons she can take over the No. 1 spot.
Second in points so far this season is junior Bobbi-Jo Slusar (Swift Current, Saskatchewan). With 10 points, she has produced in seven games what she did in 35 games last season. Her four assist performance on Oct. 29 boosted her to the No. 2 position.
The Huskies are coming off a bye week and were last in action Oct. 21-22. Sweeping Bemidji State in the most recent outing, SCSU found its first wins of the season and snapped a seven-game losing streak. The skid dates back to Feb. 20, 2005 with Wisconsin responsible for three of the seven losses in that span.
Against BSU, junior forward Hailey Clarkson scored a goal and three assists, while senior forward Ashley Stewart added three assists of her own, leading SCSU to a 4-1 victory. Senior Kristy Oonincx contributed two goals and an assist for the Huskies.
Sophomore Laura Fast, the Huskies current season goal leader, scored her third goal of the season in the BSU series. Kendall Newell, St. Cloud State's sophomore goalie, made 12 saves while recording her first win of the season for SCSU.
The games are set to begin at 7:07 p.m. Friday and 12:07 p.m. Saturday.
