MINNEAPOLIS<\/b> — The first goal is always important, especially when it turns out to be the game’s only goal.<\/p>\n
Ivana Bilic scored at 15:44 of the first period, and that was all Bemidji State needed in a 1-0 win over top-ranked Minnesota Saturday night.<\/p>\n
“I’m just really proud of our effort again tonight,” Beavers’ coach Jim Scanlan said. “Overall, it was just a real gutty performance and obviously, once again Brittni Mowat in goal was just outstanding for us.”<\/p>\n
Mowat stuffed Minnesota’s offense with a 36-save shutout.<\/p>\n
“I think as the game went on, I kind of got more confident,” Mowat said. “Once you see all the pucks, you’re seeing everything, it just kind of comes easy after that.”<\/p>\n
After a shootout win on Friday night, the Beavers (5-4-1, 1-4-1-1 WCHA) return home with five of six league points.<\/p>\n
Bilic capitalized on a rare four-on-three power play.<\/p>\n
“We really didn’t practice that much,” Bilic said. “Out there, we did really good. We moved the puck and just happened to throw a shot on net and it went off one of their players and it went in.”<\/p>\n
She showed good poise with the puck, moving to her left and looking for an opening.<\/p>\n
“There was a lot of people in front,” Bilic said. “Definitely I waited. There was a girl in front of me, so I tried to get around her and I shot it, and I don’t think the goalie saw it at all.”<\/p>\n
Kaitlyn Tougas and Madison Hutchinson earned the assists.<\/p>\n
“It was a great job of Rachael Kelly, net-front presence,” Scanlan said. “It turned out to be the winner, but at the time, it was just a real momentum changer.”<\/p>\n
Minnesota (7-1-2, 5-1-2-0 WCHA) was unable to get a full change on the kill.<\/p>\n
“You can tell that they’re getting tired once they can’t the get puck out, and that’s when you have to capitalize, and that’s what we did,” Bilic said.<\/p>\n
Bilic also scored in the shootout on Friday night to extend it to a fourth round where Stephanie Anderson scored the winner.<\/p>\n
“She was unbelievable this weekend, just phenomenal,” Scanlan said. “Obviously, Brittni will get the headlines, but Ivana Bilic was just outstanding.”<\/p>\n
The Gophers struggled to score when they had all hands available in the series opener, and without forwards Hannah Brandt and Dani Cameranesi, they proved unable to solve Mowat.<\/p>\n
“Those guys account for over 40 percent of our offense, I think,” coach Brad Frost said. “They’ve been the story of the first month. Those guys have been scoring, but we haven’t been getting a lot of secondary scoring.”<\/p>\n
Still, the story of the weekend was the team effort of BSU.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never seen our team play like that, and I think it’s just taking a step forward for our program,” Mowat said.<\/p>\n
Both teams head into a bye week.<\/p>\n
“I know our kids are tired and they’re banged up,” Frost said. “It’s a good time for a weekend off.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MINNEAPOLIS — The first goal is always important, especially when it turns out to be the game’s only goal. Ivana Bilic scored at 15:44 of the first period, and that was all Bemidji State needed in a 1-0 win over top-ranked Minnesota Saturday night. “I’m just really proud of our effort again tonight,” Beavers’ coach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19496"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19512,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19496\/revisions\/19512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19496"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}