GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Alyssa Wiebe scored at 4:19 of the overtime to lift the University of North Dakota women's hockey team to a 5-4 overtime victory this afternoon at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Senior Melissa Jaques (Cooks Creek, Manitoba) and freshman Marie-Michelle Poirier (New-Richmond, Quebec) scored power-play goals while junior Sam Turner (Hudson, Wis.) scored her first goal of the season and sophomore defenseman Kelly Lewis (Forest Lake, Minn.) added a goal for the Sioux.
“I am excited for our older kids,” head coach Brian Idalski said. “It is easy to lose site that those kids have never beaten Ohio State. Not only to beat them once, but twice. It is really big for them. It shows the fruits of their labor. All the hardships they have gone through they are starting to come out on the other side. I was very proud of them.”
Not only have the older kids never swept Ohio State --- nobody wearing a Sioux women's hockey jersey has. UND was previously 1-13-2 coming in against the Buckeyes. While breaking streaks, this is the first time in program history the Fighting Sioux have had two WCHA sweeps in a season (also swept St. Cloud State 10/10-10/11).
UND improves to 7-2-1 overall and 4-1-1-0 in the WCHA while the Buckeyes drop to 4-6-0 and 2-6-0-0 in the conference.
In its sweep over the Buckeyes and early on this season the Fighting Sioux are showing depth to its squad and not depending on its first line to do all the scoring. In Saturday's game, all of its even-strength goals came while the third line was on the ice. Wiebe, Poirier, Stephanie Roy (Grande-Digue, New Britain) and third-line defensemen Sam Turner and Alyssa Breu combined for 3 goals and five assists in the game.
“We knew right away that our new kids were going to have to come in and step up right away and not play like young kids for us,” Idalski said. “It is a common characteristic of all good teams that their young kids could contribute on any given day and today it just happened to be our younger kids that came through for us.”
“You can not underscore the job that our second line did for us this weekend as well,” Idalski said. “The job (Casie) Hanson, (Alex) Williams and (Randi) Motsko did matching up against Ohio Stats top line.”
UND got the scoring started in the first period at the 3:52 mark when Turner was able to move into the slot from near the blue-line and snipe a top-shelf one-timer pass from Roy, who was behind the net, past Buckeyes sophomore goaltender Deidre Facklis.
OSU would answer with two goals of its own in the period from Hayley Klassen (15:19) and Laura McIntosh (17:29) to take a 2-1 lead, but the Sioux would square the game going into the intermission when Jaques scored her sixth of the year on the power-play. Jaques was able to fire a slapshot that found a way threw Facklis five-hole who was going down into the butterfly position.
Both teams again would combine for a pair of goals in the second period as Morgan Marziali scored for the Buckeyes and Laura McIntosh notched her second of the night on the power-play. Lewis scored her goal at 6:07 when she was able to snipe a wrist-shot from the near faceoff circle above Facklis glove and Poirier added UND's second power-play goal of the game at 12:49.
After the fourth goal for the Sioux, the Buckeyes made a change in net returning to Friday's starter and assistant captain Liana Bonanno.
In the final stanza with the game tied at four goals apiece, the Fighting Sioux Sioux took the first four penalties and were able to successfully kill them off.
“I thought our kill did well,” Idalski said. “I know we gave up a couple power-play goals but Ohio States puck movement was good and they were finding seems and had a bunch of good looks. For us to come out in the third period and kill four straight penalties was a big test for us and we passed with flying colors. It was a good day for our special teams overall.”
The Fighting Sioux grabbed the momentum from the successful penalty kills and started amounting some pressure on Bonanno which continued into the overtime period when they outshot the Buckeyes, 5-1, and finished with the Wiebe's overtime winner. The Sioux outshot the Buckeyes 34-25 in the game.
Junior Netminder Brittany Kirkham picked up the win with 21 saves and improving to 4-1-1 on the year while Bonanno falls to 4-5-0.
“Brittany was unbelievable,” Idalski said. “She competed really hard. In my mind she was the difference in both games with some big and timely saves. That is what you need from your goaltender if you are going to have a chance to sweep or have any success whatsoever.”
The Fighting Sioux now enter a bye week before returning to action against the top-ranked Wisconsin Badgers on Nov. 15 and 16 at the Ralph Englestad Arena. Both games are scheduled for 2:07 p.m. faceoffs.
“It will be a nice break,” Idalski said. “To recharge our batteries and take care of some school stuff while getting ready for Wisconsin.”
“We are going to key on just the fact that (our matchup against Wisconsin) is a good opportunity for us to see where we are at,” Idalski said. “To play a two-time national champion and undefeated team will be fun to see where we are at and see how we match up.”
-GO SIOUX-
