No. 2 Minnesota generated plenty of offense from up top as it defeated visiting No. 6 Minnesota-Duluth, 7-1.
All five of the goals over the first two periods for the Gophers (26-2-4, 19-2-4-2 WCHA) originated with shots from its defensemen high in the zone. A couple of seniors, defenseman Rachel Ramsey and forward Meghan Lorence, led the attack with a a goal and two assists.
“I think two of my assists, one was off a shin pad and one was off a stick,” Ramsey said. “Lucky breaks, but we had the girls where they were supposed to be. The forwards were doing a great job of getting to the front of the net. Not the plan, but it’s always fun when it works out that way.”
Of the 22 shots Minnesota attempted in the first period, 19 resulted in shots on goal.
“When we played North Dakota that first game, they blocked everything,” Ramsey said. “We’ve got to get quick shots off. We practiced that a lot in the second game versus North Dakota, and I think we were up in the 40s of shots against them, so I think we just kept the same routine from last Saturday night and tried to throw everything on net before they could even get in the path of the shot.”
UMD (17-9-5, 12-9-4-2 WCHA) found itself down 4-1 after 20 minutes.
“I think we were nervous,” coach Shannon Miller said. “That would be my best guess, watching their feet not move in the first period. There were several people that didn’t play well tonight. I don’t want to single people out, but some of them were obviously in key positions. If your feet aren’t moving, if you’re not playing aggressive, if you’re not playing with confidence, when you play a good team, you’re going to get eaten alive.”
Meghan Huertas had a nice individual effort to cut Minnesota’s lead to 2-1 eight minutes into the game, the Bulldogs’ only goal in their last three games, but Maryanne Menefee answered it with a tip 32 seconds later.
“I know they’re getting frustrated because we can’t score,” Miller said. “I felt like the last two weekends, playing North Dakota and Wisconsin, we couldn’t get a bounce. That wasn’t the issue tonight at all.”
Miller thought a lot of her players felt the game was out of reach after the first period.
“We’ve really been focusing this week on making sure we came out strong on Friday, as the last two Fridays we really didn’t,” Minnesota coach Brad Frost said.
The Gophers also got goals from Cara Piazza, Lee Stecklein, Hannah Brandt, and Kelly Pannek as 13 of 16 skaters hit the score sheet in front of 2,588 fans.
