The Wisconsin women’s hockey team finally broke out of a scoring slump in a 4-0 victory against visiting Clarkson Sunday afternoon.

Annie Pankowski’s hat trick led the Badgers, scoring two, second-period goals.

The Laguna Hills, California, native’s initial second period goal started the scoring, as she took the puck and circled around the offensive zone before finding her spot in the right circle. She ripped a shot high on the stick side and past Golden Knights’ netminder Shea Tiley.

This was Pankowski’s second hat trick of the season, but Wisconsin head coach Mark Johnson has seen her improving in more ways.

He has been working with Pankowski on improving her accuracy and reads of the defense over the past weeks, while also trying to keep getting her more familiar with the college game and speed.

“As she improves in those areas, I would anticipate the puck going in more,” Johnson said. “She’s doing well, and in these types of games, you need someone to step up.”

For Pankowski’s second goal, she took a shot from the same circle, but put it glove side and made it past Tiley. Senior winger Brittany Ammerman blocked Tiley’s view until the puck was almost in the net.

Against a taller goalie, Wisconsin planned to attack the goal with top-shelf shots, as Tiley was likely to drop down on each shot.

“Our coaches have been telling us that the goalie is big and gets down low, so fire it up top if we get in close,” Pankowski said.

The final two goals of the game came in the third period, as the momentum was clearly in the Badgers favor.

“It was kind of the simile of the dam breaking,” Pankowski said. “We needed to get the first one and get rolling from there. We were able to take a little bit of a breath after the first one and get a little more bounces our way.”

The Badgers had not scored more than two goals in a game since Nov. 29 against North Dakota.

The goals helped take some pressure off Wisconsin goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens, who has been forced to make big saves in close games over the past month.

“Just being able to put in more than one was a relief for everyone,” Desbiens said. “We were working hard, doing everything, but getting unlucky bounces. I was just happy for my teammates to put a couple in today. I was super pumped about it; they deserved it.”

Although this was the first time in awhile that goals came in bunches for the Badgers, Johnson believed the performance was a culmination of six games of consistent play.

“The pace in all six has been strong,” Johnson said. “Now you have eight games left, and the main thing is to maintain what you’ve done the past three weeks and try to make some improvements in some areas where you need to improve and get yourselves ready for the playoffs.”

In Saturday’s game the power play sparked the offense and shifted momentum in the Badgers’ favor, which is how they scored their one goal. In Sunday’s game, the offense came out firing, with seven shots on goal before the Golden Knights were able to attempt one.

Wisconsin took 150 total shots over the weekend with five finding the back of the net.

The goals were much needed, as the Badgers needed something to go their way leading into the final stretch of the season.

This rare, midseason non-conference series against the defending National Champions was a good break from familiar foes. Clarkson’s top line features some bigger players than the Badgers are used to.

Wisconsin was able to use their quickness to find holes and shooting lanes to pepper Tiley with pucks.

“We had quite a bit of offensive time and moved the puck well,” Johnson said. “Again, you are trying to get opportunities, trying to get shooting lanes, trying to get pucks in the net with a purpose.”

As Wisconsin moves back into conference play next week against last place Minnesota State, it will need to keep this offensive rhythm going.

In the past three weeks, the Badgers went from first in the WCHA standings prior to their match-up against the Gophers to start the new year, to falling behind Minnesota.

Wisconsin plays on the road against Minnesota State Jan. 30 and Jan. 31 before returning home the following weekend against the third ranked team in the WCHA, Minnesota-Duluth.