Heartbreak hit Madison this weekend as the No. 3 University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs rolled into town and left the No. 4 Wisconsin women’s hockey team dumbstruck. After winning Friday afternoon’s game by a score of 3-0, the Badgers gave up a 2-0 lead in the last five minutes of regulation on Saturday and eventually lost the game in overtime.

“It’s a horrible way to lose,” head coach Mark Johnson said of Saturday’s outcome. “It’s not fun, but if you’re in this game long enough, things happen, and you try to teach your players lessons, whether you play well or you lose.”

The Badgers were without sophomore sensation Lindsay Macy for Saturday’s game, as well as goalie Christine Dufour, who was hobbled with a leg injury.

“I think we did pretty well with it,” Jackie Friesen said of the injury situation. “We stepped it up a little bit and played well. We still had confidence because one player doesn’t make the whole team.”

The Bulldogs came out strong in the first period with the bad taste of the previous day’s loss in their mouths. They pressured the Badger defense with 13 shots on goal and weren’t penalized once. However, they failed to come away from the period with a goal, and the teams went to their locker rooms locked in a scoreless game.

The momentum quickly shifted the Badgers’ way in the second period as Nikki Burish scored the game’s first goal using only one hand. As Burish skated up the left side of the ice, she used her body to lean into the defender, who was hot on her heels, and used only her left hand to control the puck and slide it underneath Bulldog goalie Riitta Schaublin’s pads.

“I was just skating hard, trying to outwork the other player, and it just sort of snuck in past the five-hole of Riitta,” Burish said.

The score was 1-0 going into the third period until senior forward Jackie Friesen scored less than two minutes in. It appeared the Badgers were on their way to a much-needed sweep of the Bulldogs until disaster struck with fewer than five minutes left to play. Bulldog forward Allison Lehrke rifled a slap-shot past Badger netminder Meghan Horras to cut the lead in half. Then, with Schaublin pulled and an extra player on the ice, the Bulldogs’ top scorer, Caroline Oullette, slipped the puck into the net with only 25.9 seconds remaining, sending the game into overtime.

A clearly stunned Badger squad did not recover as Oullette struck again only 50 seconds into overtime on a breakaway goal. The Badgers could only stare as an undulating mass of Bulldogs with Oullette as its nucleus cheered and screamed on center ice.

“Any time you lose like that, it’s a tough loss. You’re 12 minutes from winning it and sweeping it, and all of a sudden it’s taken away. But in the big picture, it will help you out,” Johnson said.

Friday’s game began quickly with a power-play goal by Friesen, her eighth of the season. UMD, the most penalized team in the WCHA, picked up three penalties in the first period, but the Badgers failed to convert on any of their other chances.

In the second frame, the Badgers looked like the most penalized team in the conference as they racked up four penalties in the period. Wisconsin’s excellent penalty kill came through, however, and they were able to kill all four penalties, but not without some scary moments. With Burish in the box on an interference call, the Bulldogs applied heavy pressure on Horras and the Badger defense. One shot managed to get just past Horras and dribbled around the crease before it was kicked out. During the melee, defender Molly Engstrom knocked the stick out of Horras’ hands and into the corner. Horras was then forced to use defender Carla MacLeod’s grossly undersized stick until Engstrom could retrieve the lost goalie stick.

“It was a little bit nerve-racking not playing with a stick,” Horras said. “But one of my teammates gave me her stick, and another put my stick on top of the net. It was a great job.”

The Badgers continued their excellent penalty killing in the third period, and they added two more goals from Grace Hutchins and Sara Bauer to seal the victory. Horras and the Badgers handed the Bulldogs their first shutout since 2001 and got a little revenge for the two losses they suffered in Duluth earlier this season.