St. Catherine freshman goalie Mel Gerten was on top of her game, but it still wasn’t enough to best third-ranked Gustavus Adolphus.
The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference-leading Gusties raised their record to 15-0-0 in conference play with a 3-0 victory over the Wildcats at Ridder Arena.
The score, however, doesn’t do justice to the domination Gustavus Adolphus showed, as it owned a 74-6 advantage in shots on goal, attempting a total of 113 shots, and won 75 percent of the faceoffs in the game.
Gerten’s efforts kept the game scoreless for nearly 32 minutes, as she stopped the first 39 shots she faced before Jessia Doig slid a shot through traffic and inside the left post at 11:32 of the second period while her team was on a power play.
Doig set up the Gusties’ second goal with 33.4 seconds remaining in the middle stanza when her pass from the right-wing boards found Molly Doyle open in the slot and the latter’s one-timer made it a two-goal game.
Gustavus Adolphus’ territorial domination resulted in its third goal, as St. Catherine was unable to clear the puck from its own end for an extended period. After a flurry of three shots on goal, the Wildcats’ defense turned the puck over to Mari Gunderson at the right side of the net. From there, she took the puck around behind the goal and scored her 12th goal of the season on a wraparound.
Although Gusties’ goalie Breanna Scavo was lightly tested, several of her stops came on breakaways.
The two teams are slated for a 2 p.m. rematch Saturday at the Lund Center.
