CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The top-ranked Wisconsin women's hockey team is bringing home a trophy as the first-ever Battle at the Burgh champions after defeating No. 3 Northeastern in a 4-3 overtime thriller Sunday at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.Â
The Badgers (20-1-1-0, 10-1-1-0 WCHA) took an early 1-0 lead on the Huskies (15-3-1, 12-2-0 HEA) as senior Alexis Mauermann fed a beautiful pass to linemate sophomore Britta Curl, who scored five-hole on Huskies' netminder Aeirn Frankel.
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Minutes later, senior
Abby Roque doubled the UW lead with a power-play strike thanks to assists from sophomore
Sophie Shirley and senior
Mekenzie Steffen, giving UW a 2-0 lead after the first 20 minutes.
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Northeastern opened the second on a power play and capitalized just 90 seconds in before converting a 2-on-1 to tie the game at 2-2 at the 11:26 mark.
With an evenly split game, both teams entered the third period with a victor's intensity.Â
Wisconsin struck first as Watts snagged a blind rebound off Shirley's shot with 12:15 left in the game, but Northeastern pulled up less than two minutes later with an awkward corner goal.
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Stuck in another deadlock, the 3-3 game went into overtime.Â
With the luck of a UW power play and just under three minutes to go in OT, junior
Caitlin Schneider snagged a rebound off junior
Brette Pettet's shot to win the game and the tournament for the Badgers.Â
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Robert Morris won the consolation game against Colgate in a 6-5 victory Sunday afternoon.Â
Three Notes of the Game:
- Abby Roque is now in a three-way tie for 10th in school history in power-play goals with 18 and is tied with Badger legend Sara Bauer (forward, 2003-07) and current UW assistant coach Jackie (Friesen) Crum (forward, 2001-05).
- Kristen Campbell, Mekenzie Steffen and Daryl Watts earned all-tournament honors alongside Colgate's Sammy Smigliani, RMU's Emily Curlett and NU's Aerin Frnkel (MVP).Â
- With the win, UW is the first team in the NCAA this year to hold 20 wins. It also marks the 10th straight year the Badgers have won 20 or more games.
Straight from the Rink:
UW head coach Mark Johnson
On the game:
"I thought (Brette)Â Pettet, (Alexis) Mauermann and (Britta) Curl were really good both games. And that really helps us. Britta scored and Pettet scored so having that secondary scoring, but just the way they played overall five-on-five was good. We made an adjustment with Schneider on the power play and she ended up getting the game-winner. But the word of the day we established is grit. If we were going to win today, we needed grit. In a rink like this, the corners aren't very big and there's going to be a bunch of gritty situations, so we needed to be gritty. Britta came up with it before the game, and it carried us right through to the end.Â
On the tournament:Â
"It really was [beautiful] in the quality of play, in the four games that were played, for the people who got a chance to watch us ... It was a good tournament, four good teams. It's nice to walk away with a trophy.
On what's next:
"Each game, especially after not playing for a month, you're not sure how you're going to come out. After the first five or six minutes of yesterday's game, we got up to speed and same thing today -- after the first four or five minutes we played, it was an up and down game. And after tonight, it's going to prep us for next week, and we all know how tough it is to go up to Bemidji and try to win a couple games up there. So having these two games under our belt is going to be helpful.Â
On family ties to Pittsburgh:
"Very good memories. When my dad came back in the '90s and helped [the Pittsburgh Penguins] win the Cup. This is such a fun place to come back to just because of the history of our family and the organization.
Up Next:
UW will head to Bemidji, Minnesota, next weekend to take on the Bemidji State Beavers. Puck drop Friday is set for 6 p.m. while the series finale Saturday is at 3 p.m. CT.
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