Through the first few minutes of play Saturday afternoon, it seemed as though the Wisconsin women’s hockey team had a tough match on its hands.

But after a little more than two and a half minutes of scoreless, back and forth action, Wisconsin solved the Boston University defense and didn’t look back the rest of the way en route to a 5-1 win in an NCAA quarterfinal game at LaBahn Arena.

“We showed them that they didn’t belong on the ice with us,” freshman forward Annie Pankowski said.

As BU’s defensive pairing slid up to contest Melissa Channel, who held the puck in front of Wisconsin’s bench, Pankowski got behind and split the pressing defenders at the blue-line. Channel then fed Pankowski, who tucked the puck past the left pad of BU goaltender Victoria Hanson to put UW up 1-0.

The crowd at LaBahn erupted as Boston University’s players drooped, a foreshadowing of things to come the rest of the way for the high-powered Wisconsin attack, which has scored four or more goals in each of the last six games.

“It’s always our goal to start out strong and put our best foot forward,” Pankowski said. “We try to set the pace from the start of the game and I really think we did that today. In the first five minutes we took it to them.”

However, the Terriers weathered the storm for most of the remainder of the period. But with only four minutes left to play in the first period, Wisconsin struck again to double its advantage.

Katarina Zgraja, the assistant captain and senior defenseman, let go a slapshot from the point that somehow found its way through a multitude of players in front of the net to make it 2-0.

“It’s been four years without experiencing that final game,” Zgraja said of failing to make the NCAA championship. “We keep talking about it, it’s not over yet but we’re staying humble and keep putting in the necessary work.”

From then on, the game turned into a wild contest.

Defenseman Mellissa Channell went down with an extremely untimely injury in an unclear fashion. After taking a slapshot late in the first period, she began to wag her hand in visible discomfort, dropping her glove to the ice in the process.

Channell then skated back to the bench bleeding from her hand, leaving a trail of blood on the ice and halting the game for some minutes as the maintenance staff cleaned it. Channel did not return to the game and her injury remains undisclosed.

After a slow start to the second period, the Badgers picked up the pace in the final five minutes of the frame, as they tallied two more times to open a four-goal lead.

Annie Pankowski added her second goal of the game at 15:43 when she picked out the bottom corner of the net with extreme accuracy, sniping Hanson who seemingly had all angles covered. Pankowski’s counterpart, the other freshman star Emily Clark, sent one past Hanson as well off a rebound just over three minutes later.

With only 20 minutes separating Wisconsin from its second consecutive Frozen Four berth, the team buckled down and began what should have been an uneventful final period with a comfortable advantage.

Leading 4-0 to that point, the game continued as it had until things began to take a turn to the uglier side.

At 7:30 into the period, a scuffle erupted at center-ice after Brittany Ammerman had taken a hit from BU’s Maddie Elia. Upset, Ammerman retaliated and, although it was unclear exactly what transpired, was then given a five minute major penalty as a well as a game misconduct for contact to the head.

The game ended with Wisconsin’s Jenny Ryan adding another goal, but BU scored its lone goal of the game with less than three minutes left to spoil Wisconsin goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens chance at her 15th shutout of the season.

But behind Desbiens 20 saves, Wisconsin held an opponent to one goal or less for the 28 time this season in 39 games.

“I think that it was a great team-effort,” Desbiens said. “Every single player did their best to back-check and to make sure that we contained their better players. We pressured them and didn’t give them any space. That made us successful.”

After a hard fought season of ups and downs, the fourth-seeded Badgers will head to Minneapolis next weekend for the Frozen Four, one step closer to their goal.

It was a statement victory against the nation’s fifth-best team, and UW will carry with them the momentum into next weekend’s matchup against top-seeded Minnesota, a team Wisconsin hasn’t beaten since 2011.

“Obviously we’re very excited,” Johnson said. “We have a great opportunity in going to the Frozen Four. I’m certainly confident in our team. We had a lot of energy, a lot of electricity, even since warmups. You could feel it the second we got on the ice today. We’re excited about this win.”