The No. 6 ranked UW women’s hockey team earned a 6-1 victory over Maine Monday afternoon, completing a weekend sweep of the Black Bears.
UW earned a 5-4 win over Maine Sunday, and with Monday’s victory they complete their first road trip of the 2003-04 season with a two-game series sweep. Sharon Cole led UW in scoring with two goals, while team captain Carla MacLeod posted three assists in Monday’s win. Sophomore goaltender Meghan Horras started her second game of the season and collected 18 saves in net for the Badgers.
Down one player early in the first period due to a penalty, Wisconsin countered the Maine power play scoring on a breakaway opportunity to jump on the scoreboard first. MacLeod set up a two-on-one play for teammates Sara Bauer and Jackie Friesen against Maine goaltender Lara Smart. Bauer brought the puck up from the right and sent a well-placed pass across the crease to Friesen, flashing in from the left for the short-handed goal at 4:49.
The Badgers took a 2-0 lead on their own power play at the 10-minute mark. Working the UW attack zone up near the blue line, MacLeod and fellow defender Molly Engstrom moved the puck waiting for an open shot. They found it at 10:07 with an open Sharon Cole coming up fast from the right side of the Maine net to beat Smart in net.
The Badgers continued their shooting attack in the second period and tallied their third goal of contest at 9:55. Karen Rickard scored on the play with assists from Kristen Witting and Meghan Hunter.
Maine took advantage of a Badger lapse after the goal, however, breaking up the shutout with a goal by Karen Droog just 22 seconds later to make it a 3-1 game. UW re-established its three-goal lead on a power play at the 13-minute mark. Team assistant captain Steph Millar received the puck from Bauer and sliced it past Smart for the power-play goal.
The third period saw both teams experience penalty trouble with power plays giving both teams opportunities, but Wisconsin claimed two power-play goals to make it a 6-1 final score. Cole knocked one in at 4:41 with assists from Engstrom and Nikki Burish for her second goal of the game, while Lindsay Macy tallied her first career goal as a Badger at 14:37 to complete the victory. Both MacLeod and Bauer assisted on the goal for the team captain’s third of the season and the frosh’s sixth in just four games as a Badger.
In the Badgers’ first road game of the season, Sunday afternoon Jackie Friesen led UW in scoring with two goals, while Steph Millar posted a goal and an assist in the win. Freshman goaltender Christine Dufour earned eight saves in her first collegiate start for UW.
Wisconsin jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first period. Sophomore Nikki Burish put Wisconsin on the scoreboard first with assists from Kathryn Greaves and Sharon Cole at 5:12, quickly followed by Friesen’s first goal of the game at 6:20. Freshman Sara Bauer earned the assist on Friesen’s goal.
Maine’s first goal came late in the first period to break the UW shutout lead. UM’s Tristan Demet found the puck in the neutral zone and brought it down ice with a Maine teammate for a two-on-one and beat Dufour in net to tally an unassisted goal at 19:34. The Badgers rebounded immediately with a goal by Karen Rickard at 19:54 courtesy of assists by Millar and her fellow assistant captain Meghan Hunter to make it a 3-1 game entering the period break.
The second period saw both teams post two goals each. Friesen and her teammates capitalized on a power play as the UW junior fired one past Maine goaltender Lara Smart at the two-minute mark with assists from Bauer and frosh Lindsay Macy. Millar, a Hudson, Wis. native, scored the Badgers’ fifth goal and her first of the season just over two minutes later. Freshman defender Bobbi-Jo Slusar recorded her first career point with the assist.
Maine scored the game’s next three goals but tallied just four shots to UW’s 17 in the third period, before the Badgers killed a late Maine power play to take the 5-4 victory.
Wisconsin, now 4-0-0 overall, will open its Western Collegiate Hockey Association season this weekend against Minnesota at the Kohl Center.
— Compiled from staff reports