Only two weeks of play remain until winter break for the Wisconsin women’s hockey team, and the Badgers have been on a roll.
Wisconsin (15-1-0) enters December on a 10-game win streak and doesn’t expect to let up this weekend at Minnesota State’s All Seasons Arena in Mankato.
“When you play well, the momentum is good and you want to carry that over and play well the next weekend,” senior Brooke Ammerman said. “Obviously it can’t hurt. But everyday in practice, we bring it and coach reminds us to work hard.”
The Badgers have carried over momentum week-to-week since they haven’t lost since Oct. 16, their only loss of the season.
These next two weekends, the Badgers play teams in the lower half of the WCHA standings in Minnesota State and Bemidji State.
“We have four games left, we have to take one of them at a time, play Friday night see how we do and come back on Saturday and not get ahead of ourselves,” head coach Mark Johnson said. “I think they have put themselves in a good position, and they are working hard at practice and that is the process.”
The Minnesota State Mavericks (5-9-0) have struggled after winning their first three games of the season. They’ve won only one game in the WCHA and have gone 2-9 in their past 11 games.
The Mavericks have been held to one goal or less in six of their past eight games, four of which have been shutouts. Also troubling the Mavericks is the fact they have a leading goal scorer in Kathleen Rogan who has only played in eight games all season due to injury. MSU’s scoring woes most likely won’t improve this weekend against Wisconsin goaltender Alex Rigsby. Rigsby leads the WCHA with a .942 save percentage.
One edge Minnesota State has over Wisconsin is home ice advantage. The Mavericks play on a smaller rink than the Badgers, which can be a difficult adjustment for the traveling team. However, Wisconsin has already played on smaller surfaces twice this season and has outscored its opponents 17-6 in those series.
“It is a different size ice sheet, similar to what we had going into Columbus against Ohio State where it is just smaller, so we will practice a couple of days to try to emulate that,” Johnson said. “But it comes down to kids coming out and playing hard and doing the little things we consistently talk about, and if we do that, that gives us the best chance to win.”
Wisconsin has a history of playing well against Minnesota State, owning a 47-1-2 record against the Mavericks since the 1999-2000 season. MSU’s only victory during that time came two seasons ago, when Johnson, Hilary Knight, and Meghan Duggan were away with Team USA for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Recent history also doesn’t bode well for the Mavericks this weekend. The Badgers have managed to improve each week and still managed to score six points last Sunday against St. Cloud, even with starting forward Carolyne Pr?vost out with a leg injury.
“We want to sweep these last two series and have good weekends against both Bemidji and Mankato,” Ammerman said. “Bemidji will be really a good series. They are on a good run right now, so that will be two good games before the break, and hopefully we end on a high note.”
