Illikainen Hat trick Leads Huskies' to shootout win over UND

Saturday, October 24

St. Cloud, Minn.

3:07 p.m.

St. Cloud State

2-5-1, 0-5-1WCHA

North Dakota

5-1-2, 3-1-2WCHA

OT 1

UND

St. Cloud State

Illikainen Hat trick Leads Huskies' to shootout win over UND

10/24/2015 6:42:00 PM | Women's Hockey

Box Score

St. Cloud State University women's hockey came out looking for redemption on Saturday, Oct. 24 and found it with a shootout win over #7 North Dakota after ending overtime play tied at 4-4.

The Huskies took control from the first puck drop and Molly Illikainen capitalized on a breakaway, when she sent one past UND's Lexie Shaw just 4:03 into the game. Alyssa Erickson and Brittney Anderson were credited with the assists.

"You could see the level of focus from the first faceoff and we took control right away and didn't wait for them to come to us. There's been an absolute gleam in our eyes from Thursday until now of our team wanting to show up and win and our team had a will to win coming into this series," Coach Rud.

Illikainen sent the Huskies to a 2-0 lead over UND shortly into the second period when she found herself in close to the net off a pass from Payge Pena.
UND closed the lead with a goal at the 17:38 mark of then second.

The Huskies fought to extend the lead and succeeded with Illikainen's third goal of the game just over a minute into the final 20. Freshman, Hannah Potrykus scored her second career goal to push the Huskies lead to 4-1.

"Our freshman have already stepped up to play a big role for a team and our seniors are there to help them when they make mistakes. We don't come down on them but we help them learn and they keep on getting better," said Illikainen.

UND pulled Shaw with just over 8:00 remaining in the game and scored three goals to tie the game and send it into overtime.

St. Cloud goaltender, Katie Fitzgerald, faced 6 shots in the overtime period but strong defense and goaltending prevailed and the game was sent into a shootout.

Both teams had three shooters go in the shoot-out but there was still no decision. The shootout moved to sudden death after the first 3 shooter and SCSU's Pena scored the winning goal of the game to solidify SCSU's first win against North Dakota in five years.

Molly Illikainen gained her first career hat trick against UND and ended SCSU's five-game scoreless streak. "Getting my first hat trick against UND hit home for me not only because of the teams rivalries, but I've grown up playing with a lot of those girls. I came into this game with the mind set of controlling what I can control and I went out and stuck to it."

"Our mentality for this game was to keep it simple and do what we do to be successful. We had a great week of practice and when they came on strong in the third we came together and stuck together as a team," said Illikainen.

Coach Rud, along with assistants Steve Macdonald and Jinelle Siergiej are responsible for the first shootout win against UND since 2010. They add this to their list of first, which is proceeded by a 2014-15 season ending win against the Wisconsin Badgers.

"We're just trying to get better evert week, and it has been fun to watch our team come together since our first game against the Gophers. We came into this weekend wanting to get a win however we could and being able to get it was a lot of fun," said Rud.