The No. 2-ranked Wisconsin women's hockey team came to the Twin Cities with one loss. Now it has three.
Sophomore forward Kelly Pannek scored with 54 seconds left in overtime to give the Gophers a 4-3 victory over the Badgers on Saturday afternoon in the last regular-season game of the season for both WCHA teams. It was her 21st goal of the season and came before an announced crowd of 3,091 at Ridder Arena.
"Great start for us just like last night. Wisconsin, to their credit, pushed back," Gophers coach Brad Frost said. "… Just great resiliency from our team — we weren't perfect here tonight. It was a little more of a classic Minnesota- Wisconsin matchup where both teams were exchanging blows. Everybody had chances."
The Gophers, who won 4-0 on Friday, took a 2-0 lead in the first five minutes. Sarah Potomak scored on a power play for the No. 3 Gophers (29-3-1, 24-3-1 WCHA) and Kate Schipper at even strength. Wisconsin (30-3-1, 24-3-1-1) cut the lead to 2-1 before the period ended.
Cara Piazza restored the Gophers' two-goal lead in the 14th minute of the second. Again the Badgers responded, cutting the lead to 3-2 on Sarah Nurse's goal two minutes later and tying the scored on Annie Pankowski's penalty shot four minutes into the third period.
Amanda Leveille had 31 saves for the Gophers, including three in the overtime, while Ann-Renee Desbiens made 23 stops for the Badgers. With the sweep, Minnesota finished one point behind the Badgers in the WCHA.
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