Western Collegiate Hockey Association
Bulldogs, Gophers, Badgers, Huskies Reach WCHA FINAL FACE-OFF
March 6, 2008
Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota, Wisconsin and St. Cloud State all followed the form chart to reach this weekend's WCHA FINAL FACE-OFF in Duluth, but the form chart can be tossed to the wind blowing in off the iced-over Lake Superior once the four open semifinals.
League champion and top seed UMD swept last-place Bemidji State, Minnesota swept North Dakota, and Wisconsin got past Minnesota State, Mankato to boost the "Big Three" to the semifinals. St. Cloud State, which figured to have the toughest chore against Ohio State, did exactly that before prevailing in the only third game required.
Now St. Cloud will try to foul up the whole pattern by attempting to upset UMD. The Bulldogs (29-4-1) and Huskies (18-14-5) meet at 1 p.m. Saturday in the first semifinal. The second figures to be one of the highlights of the women's hockey season, as Minnesota (27-5-4) faces Wisconsin (26-7-3) in the 4 p.m. Battle. The winners meet Sunday at 1 p.m.
While St. Cloud State had to rebound from a 1-8-1 finish to the regular season - with six of those losses coming against Wisconsin, Minnesota, and UMD - and then get past the Buckeyes, the league's three dominant teams have been extremely dominant, except when they play each other.
The Bulldogs, who have won 21 of their last 22 games - with only a 3-2 loss to Wisconsin since losing in a mid-November split against Minnesota in their 21-1 stretch. The Gophers rose from a sputtering start to record a 21-1-3 run, which includes only a 5-1 loss to Wisconsin as the only setback since losing 5-0 to UMD. And Wisconsin is on a 16-1-1 run, starting after being swept at home by UMD Dec. 1 and running perfectly ever since, with the only loss a 3-2 game at UMD, and the lone tie coming in the 2-2 game against Wisconsin in the final regular-season game.
This weekend should be time to face the music for all three, after they seemed to be playing musical chairs against each other through the season, UMD was 3-1 against Wisconsin but only 1-3 against Minnesota; the Gophers were 3-1 against UMD but only 1-2-1 against Wisconsin; and the Badgers had the 2-1-1 edge on Minnesota, but were only 1-3 against UMD. That's 4-4 for UMD, 4-3-1 for Minnesota, and 3-4-1 for Wisconsin in games withn their battle. Adding St. Cloud to the mix adds an interesting twist, because the Huskies went 1-2-1 against Minnesota, and
1-3 against Wisconsin, but were 0-4 against UMD.
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The afternoon game times on Saturday and Sunday are a bonus for Minnesota hockey fans, because the weekend includes the Minnesota boys state high school tournament, regarded as perhaps the top prep sports attraction in the country, at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center, and the WCHA men's regular season concludes with a series for league position with UMD at Minnesota Friday and Saturday nights.
The Minnesota-Wisconsin match-up will be a prime attraction, and also could well affect NCAA tournament pairings and potential home-ice status. UMD, which ranks second in the Pairwise computer ranking that projects NCAA rank, should be solidly set at home, and the Bulldogs used their sweep over Bemidji State not only to get everybody ready and playing well, but to put Bemidji State's star goaltender Emily Brookshaw into the league record books.
UMD's ace goaltender Kim Martin recorded two shutout periods both nights before backups Johanna Ellison and Amie Meyer shared time in both third periods. When junior Lisa Kissick scored the Beavers' lone goal of the weekend, a shorthanded marker with :31 seconds remaining, UMD coach Shannon Miller said, "They worked hard, and I was happy they earned a goal."
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs simply wore down Brookshaw by firing an even 100 shots at her in the series. Those 100 pushed Brookshaw over the 1,000-save mark for the season - with 1,071 to become the only WCHA goalie to record more than 1,000 saves this season. Her four-year career saves rose to 3,074 - also a league record. And by weathering all 120 minutes in the DECC series, she finished with 6,075 career minutes, surpassing the record 6,015 of former UMD netminder Patricia Sautter.
The four teams in this weekend's WCHA FINAL FACE-OFF all have outstanding goaltending, but none faced the attacks Brookshaw saw.
UMD has Kim Martin, who has an overall save percentage of .951, Wisconsin has Jessi Vetter (.930), St. Cloud State has Kendall Newell (.916), and Minnesota has both Kim Hanlon (.914) and freshman Jenny Lura (.912). But right in the midst of those five league-leaders is Brookshaw, who finished with a .918 save percentage and made 1,082 saves. Newell has made 709 saves, Martin 705, Vetter 569, Hanlon 424, and Lura 292. Minnesota State goalie Britni Kehler made 875 saves, second-highest to Brookshaw's 1,082.
The women's WCHA is blessed with three exceptional senior goaltenders this season in Brookshaw, Newell, and Kehler, and Sertich said he was curious about the highly promoted skills competition for next month's men's Frozen Four in Denver. Six skaters and two goalies are each selected for East and West teams for both men and women, but only Kehler was chosen from the WCHA, joined by the goalie from Mercyhurst, located in Erie, Pa., as the second West women's goalie. That seems to be a snub to Newell, who carried St. Cloud State to its fourth-place finish, and Brookshaw, who was so outstanding for a team that won only one WCHA game all season.
Brookshaw's reward may have been more tangible: She was so impressive against UMD that after the 5-1 playoff loss at the DECC, she was named the game's No. 1 star, and applauded for it. If the Bulldogs will need a strong performance to beat Newell - who had beaten both Minnesota and Wisconsin - they got overload training by working all weekend to solve Brookshaw's acrobatics.
Freshmen Laura Fridfinnson and sophomore Emmanuelle Blais both had three goals in the two games, while their center, freshman league scoring champion Haley Irwin, had four assists.
But Bemidji coach Steve Sertich had the Beavers poised for the longshot of upsetting UMD, and played the Bulldogs evenly through the first half of the first game. The games were clean and fast-paced, but killing several penalties wore down Bemidji State, yet ironically, it was a penalty to UMD that resulted in Fridfinnson sailing off to break the scoreless game with a shorthanded breakaway goal at 0:55 of the second period.
Midway through the second period it was still 1-0. "It was playoff hockey until then," said Sertich. "After that, it wasn't playoff hockey. All the penalties tired out our top players, and our goaltender."
Sophomore Saara Tuominen - the team and league top scorer until a dislocated kneecap sidelined her for two months - showed she has regained her touch by moving in from the right circle and snapping a sizzling wrist shot through a tiny opening, high to the short side. Tuominen's feed set up Myriam Trepanier's screened shot from the right point on a power-play for a 3-0 edge. Blais scored on a third rebound early in the third period, and in the last three minutes, Karine Demeule knocked in another rebound, and Blais whistled in a hard-rushing slapshot. UMD fired off 24 of its 53 shots in the third period.
After the 53-13 shot advantage in the first game, it was 47-14 in the second , but again Brookshaw was superb. She stopped 18 shots, yielding only Sara O'Toole's rebound at 1:20 of the first period, and adding 16 saves in the middle period while Jocelyne Larocque scored from the point and Fridfinnson connected on a power play for a 3-0 cushion. Brookshaw remained solid for the first 12 minutes of the third, when Blais and Fridfinnson scored barely a minute apart.
"We never quit, and kept battling all through both these games, just as we did all season," said Sertich. "We tried to keep it positive, and they practiced hard and kept working. But UMD can really wheel and deal, and they've got some world-class players."