MINNEAPOLIS — After trailing Minnesota State for nearly 40 minutes, Minnesota got third-period goals from a pair of junior defensemen and escaped with a 2-1 win.
“I’m just so proud of our team and our players and the way they battled here tonight,” Minnesota coach Brad Frost said. “I’m not sure we could have played much better. We attempted 117 shots; we had a ton on net.”
Megan Wolfe’s shot from center point found its way through traffic and hit the net behind Mavericks’ goaltender Brianna Quade at 12:27 of the final frame to finally give the Gophers (20-3-0, 15-3-0-0 WCHA) a victory.
“To have two game-winning goals on the weekend as a defenseman is pretty impressive,” Frost said.
“Minnesota showed why they’re ranked third in the country with the amount of skill players they have,” MSU coach John Harrington said. “I thought we did a great job of playing the way we would have to play to be successful.”
Quade finished with 48 saves for Minnesota State (3-19-2, 0-17-1-0 WCHA).
“Brianna was terrific; she really was,” Harrington said. “She found pucks through traffic, she made saves on redirects, she steered pucks to the corners and eliminated second and third chances down there. She’s an outstanding goaltender. That was a performance that’s really deserving of a weekly award in our league.”
Over the first 20 minutes, the Gophers attempted 42 shots to three for Minnesota State, and they led in shots, 18-2, but the Mavericks had the only thing that mattered, the period’s lone goal.
That came six seconds into Minnesota State’s first power play of the weekend when a puck bounced to the edge of the crease where Hannah Davidson jammed it home for her seventh goal of the season.
The Gophers kept pressuring.
“I really think we didn’t let frustration get to us today, which was great,” Gophers junior defenseman Lee Stecklein said. “It’s easy when things aren’t going your way to maybe let it happen, but we all just came together closer with each chance that they stopped or that we’d miss. We realized that it would come eventually, we just had to keep doing exactly what we were doing.”
Minnesota tied the game on its fourth power play of the day, when Kate Schipper hit Stecklein camped on the back door.
“We really needed something at that point of the game,” Stecklein said. “We’d been creating so many chances, and Mankato did a great job of stopping all of them, whether it was their ‘D’ or their goalie. Schipper made that great pass there; I don’t know how she found my stick. I just had the easy job of whacking it in.”
Sidney Peters stopped seven shots to get her fifth win of the season, and Kelly Pannek earned two assists.
“Whether we had won that game or not, regardless of the big scoreboard, I would have been proud of our team today,” Frost said.
The Gophers head to St. Cloud State next weekend, while MSU searches for its first WCHA win when it hosts Ohio State.
“It’s been baptism by fire this whole year; the league is so good,” Harrington said. “I think we’re getting better.”
