MINNEAPOLIS — The Wisconsin Badgers earned their eighth title on Sunday, coming from behind to defeat Ohio State 4-3 in overtime at Ridder Arena on the campus of the University of Minnesota.
The Badgers tied the game on a penalty shot with just 18.9 seconds left on the clock after Mark Johnson’s coaches challenge revealed Ohio State’s Maddi Wheeler had covered the puck with her hand in the crease.
Kirsten Simms buried the penalty shot to force overtime.
The game broadcast showed Johnson asking his team “Who wants it?” in reference to the penalty shot and Simms’ hand shooting up, but after the game she said her initial inclination was not to put herself in that situation.
But her teammates were chanting her name and hyping her up.
“We know she’s the best goal scorer on the team, so we had to let her know and remind her and tell her she’s clutch,” said Laila Edwards.
Johnson said he put the question to the players on who wanted to shoot because he knew confidence was the most important part of the equation.
“I wanted to see who wanted to step up and own it and who felt comfortable in this setting, because you can’t have one ounce of negativity in your mind as you pick the puck up. It’s got to be all positive,” he said.
Though she didn’t start there, the support from her teammates got Simms there and had her shooting her hand up when the question came from her coach.
Both goalie Ava McNaughton and Johnson admitted after the game that they did not watch Simms take the shot.
“I knew that she she has so many moves up her sleeve and it’s so difficult to defend her on a shoot out. I knew that she had everything she needed in her toolbox and I didn’t need to look. All I needed to hear was the crowd and I knew that it was going to go in,” said McNaughton.
Simms said she didn’t overthink what move she was going to use on the play, but it turns out the last successful penalty shot the Badgers scored was put in by Kirsten Simms – and she scored it on Thiele with a move that looked similar to Sunday’s – with one exception. On Sunday, Simms pulled the puck back across to her forehand to score.
Sunday’s game-tying penalty shot.
It was Edwards that alerted Johnson to the fact that he should call for a challenge on the play.
“Harvey gave me a really good feed. I tried to put it in the net, but didn’t. I saw the puck was loose somewhere and then I saw one of their players put their hand over it in the crease. I started yelling at the ref ‘She’s covering it, she’s covering it’ and they said ‘no, no,’ so as soon as the whistle blew I went right to the bench and said, ‘Coach you have to challenge that,'” said Edwards.
In the extra frame, Lacey Eden’s shot was kick saved by Amanda Thiele, but the puck came out to Simms, who put it into the net to give UW the win.
After the game, Johnson was still processing the chaos of the final few minutes of the game.
“I’m still trying to process the whole last 18 seconds of the third period, and then over time, and obviously, we found a way to win. I don’t think we played one of our better games, but as they told the team a few minutes ago, they figured out how to get to the finish line. I’ve always said, ‘Monday always comes.’ Well, Monday’s coming tomorrow, and you’ve got the national championship trophy back in Mad-town, so it’s a good day,” he said.
The game was a showcase of what makes NCAA women’s hockey great and it took every bit of the 62:49 minutes to decide a winner. The game was fast and frenetic, with skilled goals, great goaltending and a finish that Hollywood wishes it could write.
For all the joy of the Badgers, it was an exceptionally tough way for the Buckeyes to lose a game they all but had wrapped up. A too many skater penalty had Wisconsin on the power play to close out regulation, which allowed them to pepper the net and led to the play where Wheeler put her hand on the puck.
“There’s not a lot to really say after a tough loss. These are fantastic human beings. I think they played phenomenal tonight. It’s the way we lost with 18 seconds left. It was an unfortunate outcome,” said OSU coach Nadine Muzerall.
Ohio State played the game they wanted to play for 59 minutes Sunday. Their call-word is “relentless” and it was on full display. They dominated the neutral zone and stopped Wisconsin from ever really getting settled into their game. They forced turnovers, kept them from the zone and absolutely check the top offense in the country in check.
Muzerall wondered after the game if she should have challenged Simms’ penalty shot. The Ohio State staff felt like Simms pulled the puck backwards, something the rules prohibit, but she said she didn’t feel like there was clear video evidence and having already used her timeout, would have been in a six-on-three situation if she failed, serving two penalties and with Wisconsin having pulled their goalie for an extra attacker.
“Going in overtime with them tying it so late, it was hard. We knew that there was a momentum shift. We talked about that all weekend, but we knew that right from the jump we had to get on it. We had to get that momentum back. And unfortunately, we couldn’t grasp it,” said Buckeye defender Emma Peschel.
Joy Dunne opened the scoring just seconds into the first power play of the game, taking a pass from Jenna Buglioni and skating through the entire Badger team on her way to the net. She pulled UW goalie Ava McNaughton to her right before switching the puck back to her left and pushing it around McNaughton and into the net.
On the ensuing play and with her team still on the power play, Laila Edwards won the puck in the neutral zone and took it straight to net, beating Amanda Thiele to tie the game 1-1. They were the fastest consecutive back to back goals from opposing teams in women’s Frozen Four history.
Ohio State took a 2-1 lead into the first break thanks to Sloane Matthews, who stole the puck off Edwards at center ice and headed straight at McNaughton, beating her top shelf, far corner with about five minutes left in the frame.
They extended it just 10 seconds into the second as Makenna Webster’s centering shot from behind the net deflected into the circle where Emma Peschel stepped up and smoked a shot to give OSU a 3-1 lead.
Harvey brought the lead back down to one a few minutes later on a rocket of her own after Kirsten Simms used some fancy stick work to hold on to the puck in traffic and lay it off to Harvey.
In a season where she sometimes struggled with finding her role after being the team’s leading scorer last season, Simms came up big in two massive situations to carry her team to the title. But continuing a theme from the Badgers throughout the season and especially in the NCAA Tournament, Simms said it wasn’t about her and more about the fact that the team completed their goal.
“It still hasn’t really totally set in with me, and at the end of the day, I’m just super happy that we’re bringing that trophy back to Madison. I mean, no matter how the job got done, it got done, and we’re taking that trophy home with us,” said Simms.
The win was the culmination of the best seasons in Wisconsin women’s hockey history. They finish the season 38-1-2, setting a new program record for wins in a season. They have the Patty Kazmaier winner and the other top two finalist. They have four first-team All-Americans and the Goaltender of the Year. They didn’t always play their best games, Johnson said, but they were consistent and consistently got results.
“You start with this blank canvas at the beginning of the year, and then you start to paint this picture of what the year is going to look like and what’s going to transpire. We get to the end, and we’re playing the national championship game… and Today, we got a masterpiece.”
