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Facing its second border battle of the season, the Wisconsin women’s hockey team hits the road to finish out the regular season against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

Despite the excitement of finishing their season in the rivalry, the Badgers are preparing to give a strong showing against the No. 2 Gophers for the second time this season.

The last time the two teams faced off, the Badgers dominated the series, sweeping the Gophers and handing them their first loss of the season. Wisconsin is hoping to have the same confidence this weekend and to finish the season strong.

“I’ll ask the players to recollect or just think about what made it successful in each of those games and hopefully recreate those same preparations or moves on the ice or whatever it was that made us have confidence and be successful,” interim head coach Tracy DeKeyser said. “We continue to work on goal scoring drills and being sound defensively — that’s one thing that our team needs to keep working on — team defense.”

After an impressive and emotional 6-0 win over the Minnesota State Mavericks last weekend, the Badgers are using their emotional high to motivate them for the challenging series this weekend.

Senior goalie Alannah McCready, a native Minnesotan, is excited for the series.

“It’s the end of the season, and we just want to take that high and push it through all the way to end to make sure that we end everything on a good note and to make sure that we’re on an upswing at the end and not going downhill.

“[Ridder Arena] is a smaller rink than what we play on at the Kohl Center, so we’re just doing different things in practice to prepare for the smaller rink. Being from Minnesota it’s always nice to go in there, especially [to get] a win, even though I love Minnesota. I’m friends with a lot of girls on the team so it’s a fun rivalry every time we play them.”

McCready is not the only one who enjoys playing at Ridder Arena. With Minnesota being so close, many Badger fans make the trip to support the team.

Due to all the support and the intense atmosphere, the team feels like playing at Ridder is just like playing at home.

“It was awesome to get those nine goals when we played them, and last weekend was our biggest win of the year,” sophomore forward Brooke Ammerman said. “We always play well in Ridder, so we have a really good track record there. Last year was my first time; it was an awesome experience. It was loud, it’s crazy, they play hard, we play hard, it’s going to be fun.”

Excited for the tough matchup, UW still has to be prepared for the No. 2 squad.

Facing off against the athletic Gophers, DeKeyser expects an intense game, but also believes it’s a good way to end the season.

“We expect an up-tempo game. It’s going to be fast-paced. We’re doing a lot of one-on-one’s, two-on-two’s, goal scoring while under pressure — those types of things. We’ll do more defensive stuff — team defense, down low, in corners, special teams. Nothing really too different, just review, review and to make sure that we’re sound and solid with the fundamentals.

“It’s been fun. It all comes down to these next two games, everyone has something on the line here… these shouldn’t be hard to prepare for, to motivate for.”

While it is preparing for a fast-paced game, the team remains motivated for the end of the season especially with the rivalry in mind.

“It’s just a rivalry game,” Ammerman said. “There’s not much preparing to do; we should just be ready to go.”