St. Cloud State’s season ends with 6-2 loss at No. 2 Minnesota Duluth

Friday, February 24

Duluth, Minn.

3:07 p.m.

St. Cloud State

9-23-4)(7-20-3WCHA

Minnesota Duluth

24-5-5)(21-5-4WCHA

St. Cloud State

Minnesota Duluth

Senior Payge Pena's goal knotted the game at one and capped off a strong first period for St. Cloud State.

Photo by: Dave Harwig

St. Cloud State’s season ends with 6-2 loss at No. 2 Minnesota Duluth

2/24/2017 5:43:00 PM | Women's Hockey

Box Score

After starting strong, second period UMD surge doomed Huskies in season-ending defeat

By: Ryan Evans

DULUTH—After a determined first period effort, the St. Cloud State women's hockey team (9-23-4, 7-20-3-2 WCHA) succumbed to a strong second period surge and was swept out of the WCHA Playoffs, 6-2, by No. 2 Minnesota Duluth (24-4-4, 21-5-4-1) on Friday.

The loss marks the ninth-straight season SCSU's campaign has ended in the conference quarterfinals.

Seeking to extend their season, the Huskies' start was as promising as they could have hoped for. Though UMD opened the scoring, the Huskies out-shot, 13-10, and out-attempted, 27-23, the Bulldogs in the first period. Their relentless pressure finally paid off when freshman forward Kayla Friesen found senior forward Payge Pena on the doorstep for an equalizer with 4:31 to play in the stanza.

"We outplayed them in a lot of ways. We did exactly what we needed to do to try to mount a comeback in the series," head coach Eric Rud said. "Scoring a goal in that period gave us a little bit of confidence and got us going in the right direction."

"Coming in at intermission, we were pretty happy with the way the game started."

The tide turned, though, in the Bulldogs favor in the second. They broke the tie 1:22 and tacked on twice more to power themselves past the Huskies for good. SCSU was out-shot, 21-3, and out-attempted, 34-7, in the middle frame as UMD notched three unanswered goals. It took until 3:58 to play in the frame for the Huskies to chart their first shot on goal.

SCSU was whistled for three penalties in the first 8:18 of the second period and had to kill off a pair of 5-on-4 power plays and a 4-on-3, which Rud believes worked against the Huskies' momentum. The Bulldogs' third goal came just after one of the penalties expired.

"When you're playing against a team with high-end players, you really want to play the game at 5-on-5," Rud said. "When we're not, we have to shorten our bench and their best kids are on the ice all the time. That caught up to us."

"We got in a funk right in the middle because we had to expend so much energy to kill the power plays," he added. "That killed us for the rest of the period and we weren't able to muster anything up."

After Minnesota Duluth tacked on another in the third period, sophomore forward Julia Tylke briefly drew SCSU within three, 5-2, with 3:49 to play with her team-leading 12th goal of the season, before UMD added an empty-netter to round out the scoring.

Friday's loss was the final career game for SCSU's seven seniors—forwards Lauren Hespenheide, Kelsey Saelens and Pena; defensemen Caroline Markstrom, Christa Moody and Jenna Redford; and goaltender Madeleiene Dahl, who relieved freshman goaltender Janine Alder for the final 20 minutes and stopped nine of the 10 shots she faced.

"All we ask every year is for our seniors to leave this program better than how they found it," Rud said. "This group certainly did that. They've helped support our younger players and have helped to bring them along."

"We owe them a great thank you."

St. Cloud State finishes the 2016-17 season with a 9-23-4 record, overall, and a 7-20-3-2 mark in WCHA play. Though the season ended in disappointment, by finishing sixth in conference, the Huskies completed the best back-to-back seasons for the program since 2008-09 and 2009-10, when it placed fourth and third, respectively.

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