In a game that was almost a mirror opposite of Friday night, Ohio State downed North Dakota 5-4.
The Buckeyes (5-3-0) were led by junior forward Jana Harrigan, the team’s leading overall scorer with three goals and eight assists. Harrigan scored two goals in the second and assisted on both the game-tying and game-winning goals that brought OSU (2-6-0) back from a 4-3 deficit.
“I thought she was a threat offensively, she attacked at the puck, she made
good decisions and had poise on the power play,” said Ohio State coach
Jackie Barto of Harrigan’s game. “She was definitely a catalyst on the
power play.”
The game-winning goal came at 8:57 of the third just 1:15 after Jeni Creary scored to tie the game. Harrigan won the faceoff back to freshman defenseman Tessa Bonhomme who took a high shot that found its way through traffic under the crossbar. From there Vanderveer kept the lead safe with her solid play in the third.
Harrigan was also strong defensively on the team’s only two penalty kills. Ohio State did a far better job of staying out of the box than on Friday, when the team was shorthanded on 11 occasions.
“We needed to stay out of the box and make good decisions there,” Barto said.
Some of UND’s best chances to tie the game came on a power play with five minutes to play, but the solid play of sophomore goalie Erika Vanderveer shut the door on the Sioux. She made a couple of saves in tight to preserve the lead.
“She has come up big for us all year,” said Harrigan of Vanderveer. “She’s
just doing what she does.”
For the rest of the game, OSU was relentless on the forecheck and did not
allow the Sioux to pull their goalie late for the extra attacker.
Vanderveer, who finished the game with 16 saves, stopped 12 of 13 shots in the third period. She improved her record to 4-0-0 this season. Amber
Hasbargen stopped 30 shots and saw her record fall to 2-4-0 on the year.
North Dakota took the lead just nine seconds into the third on freshman Cami Wooster’s second goal of the night and third of the weekend.
Alexia Gagnon-Laplante’s highlight reel goal tied the game 3-3 in the
second. She picked up a loose puck skated in 2-on-1, faked the pass, and
put the puck in just inside the crossbar on the glove side.
“I was looking for the pass and the D took the other player so I thought I’d
shoot,” Gagnon-Laplante said. “I saw the goalie went down so I just top cornered it.”
“That was a beautiful goal, a goal-scorers’ goal,” said UND head coach
Shantel Rivard, “Alex has great hands and she just buried that puck right
under the webbing.”
Ohio State went two-for-six on the power play, including the game-tying goal by Creary, the Buckeyes’ top goal scorer. She notched her eighth goal of the season while on the power play on a tic-tac-toe play from senior forward Meaghan Mulvaney and Jana Harrigan.
The Buckeyes seemed to have a little more jump in their legs after being
outworked on Friday night. The shots on goal were also indicative of the
extra effort. They outshot UND 35-20.
“We had two goals at the start of the game, to outwork North Dakota, and
also to outshoot them,” Barto said. “I felt like we accomplished those goals.”
“We thought they outworked us last night and we did not want that to happen again,” Harrigan said.
UND plays host to Bemidji State next weekend, while Ohio State travels to No. 1 Minnesota.
