What's On Tap: The Minnesota State women's hockey team will travel to Madison to take on the third-rated University of Wisconsin Badgers at LaBahn Arena.
MSU and UW will battle on Thursday night at 7:07 p.m., before closing out the series on Friday afternoon at 3:07 p.m.
Looking Back at Last Week: The Mavericks returned home after being on the road for their previous five games and dropped a couple of contests to Ohio State at All Seasons Arena.
The Buckeye's scored two goal in the first six minutes of the game on Friday night to take and early 2-0 lead. Neither team was able to put one into the back of the net during the middle period as OSU outshot MSU 12-11. Freshman
Hannah Davidson recorded her first career goal in a Maverick uniform and her team-leading fifth point of the season on the power-play in the third period, but it wasn't enough as MSU fell 3-1.
On Saturday both teams skated to a scoreless first period as the Mavericks killed off two Buckeye power-play opportunities. Sophomore
Brianna Quade tallied 16 saves in the opening period of play. OSU struck at 4:18 of the second period as the Mavericks turned the puck over in their own zone and the Danielle Gagne beat Quade to take a 1-0 lead. Minnesota State was unable to score and Ohio State added an empty-net goal in the final minutes to win 2-0.
Looking at the Badgers: Wisconsin owns an overall record of 9-2-1 and sit on top of the WCHA with a record of 7-2-1. The Badgers most recent games were back on Oct. 31st and Nov. 1st when they took on North Dakota losing the first game in a shootout before taking the final game 3-2.
The Badgers are led by head coach Mark Johnson who is in his 11th year at the helm of the program. Johnson has compiled a record of 340-66-31 in his career at UW. In total, Wisconsin has five players with 10 points or more led by senior Karley Sylvester (F, 5-9, Warroad, Minn.) who leads the team in points and assists totalling 4-11--15 so far this season. Senior Brittany Ammerman (F, 5-6, River Vale, N.J.) leads the team in goals with eight and has added six assists for 14 points. Sophomere goaltender Ann-Renee Desbians (G, 5-9, La Malbaie, Quebec) is 7-2-1 on the year owning a goals against average of 1.78 and a .917 save percentage.
The Badgers are 11-of-53 on the power-play and are killing of their own penalties with a 93.8% success rate. They have averaged 3.67 goals per game and are allowing just 1.58 while outshooting their opponents by almost 19 shots per game.
Last Time Around: The Mavericks and Badgers faced each four times during the regular season last year with UW winning each of those contests. They also faced off in the first round of the WCHA Playoffs. UW took the first game 4-0 but MSU came back with a shutout of their own, winning by a final score of 3-0 to force a third and final game. Wisconsin won that final game 2-0 to continue its season.
Minnesota State All-Time: The MSU women's hockey program - started in 1998-99 - is currently in its 17th season of competition and has compiled a 158-358-48 (.323) record in 564 total games played. The Mavericks are in their 16th year as members of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association and boast an 89-281-40 (.267) mark in 408 league contests.
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