Minneapolis – Amanda Kessel played her final collegiate game at Ridder Arena Saturday, then offered a few postgame observations that left most of her teammates with moist eyes.

“Kess had a few people in tears,” fellow senior Hannah Brandt commented. “Maybe more than a few.”

Kessel, a 24-year-old senior who had missed 18 months because of concussion symptoms before surprisingly returning to the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team six weeks ago, capped her days at Ridder in high style with a hat trick.

Her play lifted the Gophers to a 6-2 NCAA quarterfinal victory over Princeton in front of 2,468 Ridder Arena customers, ushering the Gophers into the Frozen Four for the fifth consecutive season.

Amanda Kessel (MHM Photo / Carson Mark)

Then she stood in front of her teammates and told them what a joy it has been to play for the Gophers for 3 ½ seasons, how fortunate she considered herself to be back in uniform and how much it means to the program to gun for a second consecutive NCAA title and fourth in five seasons.

Not only did she tally the winning goal late in the first period, but her hat trick was her first as a Gopher since Jan. 18, 2013.

“Pretty awesome,” she said.

Gophers coach Brad Frost, who raised his record at Minnesota to 291-45-22, said it has been a thrill to have Kessel back on a team that was already considered one of the best in the nation.

“She has just been a great leader for us the last six weeks,” Frost said. “Here’s a kid who thought her hockey career was over and now she’s got a second shot at it, so you can see the passion that she’s played with. … It is emotional to see her out there and see her competing once again.”

The Patty Kazmaier Award winner as college women’s hockey player of the year three seasons ago before her one-year term with the U.S. Olympic team, Kessel finished with three goals, one assist and seven of the Gophers’ shots as the home team outshot Princeton 43-27.

Strangely, however, Minnesota will advance to the Frozen Four as an underdog, seeded No. 3 in the nation. The Gophers needed Saturday’s win to earn a replay of Border Battle hostilities with Wisconsin, which stunned the Gophers 1-0 in the WCHA playoff finale a week earlier.

The two will collide Friday at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H.

“In my opinion,” Brandt said, “there’s nothing better than a Minnesota-Wisconsin game.”

There was little doubt throughout the afternoon that the Gophers, who have a 33-4-1 record, would take care of Princeton (22-9-2). Even after the Tigers scored just 29 seconds into the first period, this game was tilted toward Minnesota.

Hannah Brandt (MHM Photo / Carson Mark)

Brandt’s 25th goal at the 4:07 mark of the period tied the score, and Kessel drilled a short-handed breakaway to put her team in front 1:14 later, then tallied on a power play at the 17:35 mark for what proved to be the winning goal.

Teammate Nina Rogers sidled up to Kessel after the first period and said she might bring a hat to the bench for the second, just in case. Kessel laughed that off, but plenty of fans in the crowd obliged by tossing hats on the ice when Kessel’s third goal made it 6-1 late in the second period.

Frost downplayed whether or not his team will be an underdog in the semifinals at New Hampshire.

“The expectations are so high within our program,” he explained that fans say, “If you don’t get to the Frozen Four, what happened? What’s wrong? As a coach, you just hope and pray that you get your team as prepared as possible and they play well, like they did tonight.

“Now it’s candy as you go to the Frozen Four. You give yourself a shot, and that’s all you can ask for.”

This will be the fourth Frozen Four in four seasons for Brandt, who broke out of a slight slump with a goal and two assists. Along with a goal and an assist from Sarah Potomak and Kessel’s four points, Minnesota’s top line produced nine points.

Those three were “all over the score sheet,” Frost said, and it enabled Minnesota to be all over Princeton.

The post Going Out in Style appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

[See image gallery at minnesotahockeymag.com]

The post Gallery: Gophers vs. Tigers appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Coast-to-coast action highlights a full slate of WCHA games

After successful opening weekend which saw six of its teams go 4-0-2 in non-conference action and 3-0-0 in exhibition play, all eight women’s Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) teams take to the ice this weekend in preparation for next week’s conference openers.

The weekend’s slate of interleague contests begins tonight with No. 1 Minnesota, exhibition winners over the Minnesota Whitecaps 5-4 on Sept. 25, launching its national title defense with a pair of games in State College, Penn. against the Penn State Nittany Lions. Minnesota returns three All-Americans in senior forward Hannah Brandt (first team), junior forward Dani Cameranesi (second team) and junior defenseman Lee Stecklein.

Brandt enters the 2015-16 season as the NCAA’s active career scoring leader with 221 points (90 goals, 131 assists) which ranks her 16th in NCAA history.

The Maura Crowell era behind Minnesota Duluth bench continues with the Bulldogs (2-0-0) traveling to Boston to face No. 2 Boston College. Crowell’s tenure got underway last week with a pair of road wins at Lindenwood led by WCHA Offensive Player of the Week Ashley Brykaliuk. The junior forward compiled five points (2 goals, 3 assists) in 4-3 and 4-1 victories.

Senior goaltender Kayla Black stopped 48 of 52 shots in her 103rd and 104th career games between the UMD pipes. The Bulldogs’ career leader in shutouts (19) and saves (2,558) is now tied with Rita Schaublin for the most games played in team history.

Like UMD, No. 9 Bemidji State takes its undefeated record and heads east this weekend to take on Vermont. Jim Scanlan’s Beavers (1-0-1), 11-9-1 on the road last year, opened the season with a win and a tie against Robert Morris University at the Sanford Center.

Sophomore defenseman Alexis Joyce had a big weekend to earn her WCHA Defensive Player of the Week honors. Joyce tied for the team lead with three points, including the season’s first goal for BSU, and was a plus-5 with two blocked shots. Returning first-team All-American goaltender Brittni Mowat made 18 saves in Friday’s 3-1 win over the Colonials.

Crowell was not the only rookie coach to get off on the right foot last week. New Minnesota State coach John Harrington also enters the weekend undefeated after his Mavericks (1-0-1) tied and defeated Union College at home. WCHA Rookie of the Week Corbin Boyd made her first career goal even more memorable by scoring Friday’s game-tying tally with just 1:48 remaining in regulation.

MSU’s 3-0 win in its second game of the season is significant in that it took the Mavericks 18 games (0-16-1) to pick up their first win of the 2014-15 season.

Minnesota State takes on the Rochester Institute of Technology (R.I.T.) this weekend in Rochester, N.Y., less than 300 miles from Lake Placid, N.Y. where Harrington and his Team USA teammates defeated the mighty Soviet Union their way to capturing an Olympic gold medal under coach Herb Brooks.

Like the Gophers, St. Cloud State opened its season with a one-goal win over the Minnesota Whitecaps last week. Second-year coach Eric Rud’s Huskies have the privilege this weekend to welcome Merrimack College to Division I women’s college hockey.  SCSU travels to North Andover, Mass. to face off against the Warriors in their first-ever regular season games.

Elsewhere around the league … Four-time Olympic medalist and two-time WCHA Player of the Year Jenny Potter officially returns to the league this weekend for her D-I head coaching debut with Ohio State as the Buckeye hit the road to take on Lindenwood. … Wisconsin heads west to open its season in San Jose, Calif. The No. 3 Badgers face Providence in a two-game series at Sharks Ice – the official training facility for the NHL’s San Jose Sharks. … North Dakota begins its regular season in Troy, N.Y. with a series against RPI.

The post Women’s college notebook appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

[See image gallery at minnesotahockeymag.com]

The post Final Face-Off Gallery: Wisconsin vs. Bemidji State appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Warroad’s Karley Sylvester scores as Badgers capture first WCHA title since 2011

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — The Wisconsin women’s hockey team played spoiler to Bemidji State’s upset bid on Sunday afternoon as it defeated the Beavers, 4-0, to win the 2015 WCHA Final Face-Off championship.

Led by another big offensive performance from Sarah Nurse, the Badgers scored a goal in every period of play this weekend en route to winning the WCHA championship.

“Overall, it was six good periods of hockey against two strong opponents who had great seasons and we’re happy to take the trophy back to Madison,” Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson said.

Under first-year head coach Jim Scanlan, the Beavers were playing in their first-ever postseason championship game, but came up just short of capping off their run with a title.

“To play in a championship game is something that I’m sure in Vegas, the odds were pretty astronomical [for us],” Scanlan said. “We’re extremely proud of what we’ve done this year.”

After the Badgers scored in the first period yesterday against UND, Nurse opened up an early lead once again for her team, about seven minutes into the game. Bemidji State earned a power-play chance immediately after, but the Wisconsin defense held them off to stay ahead.

Nurse then doubled the lead for the Badgers with 7:20 remaining in the first. She capitalized on some extended pressure for her team, scoring her fourth goal in the last two periods of play.

“Our whole team’s playing well,” Nurse said when asked about her offensive spark this weekend. “We have a ton of energy. We’re really excited to be on the ice every single shift and I think just feeding off the energy from the team, it’s really helping all of our games.”

Getting on the board so quickly once again seemed to give the Badgers a boost.

“We built off what we did yesterday,” Johnson said. “We beat a strong North Dakota team in their building and you want to come out with the same energy and start the game the way we finished it off last night, and we were able to do that again.”

Despite being down by a couple of goals early on in the game, Scanlan said that his team’s mindset never changed.

“We talked about the next one being a big one,” he said. “We tried to continue to do the things that were going to allow us to be successful, to get pucks to the net. I know (junior forward) Steph Anderson had a great opportunity in the slot and one of their players got in front of it to block it.”

After outshooting the Beavers 12-4 in the first period, Wisconsin continued to bring the pressure in the second, and BSU goaltender Brittni Mowat came up with several key saves. But having that early lead to work with ended up making a big difference for the Badgers.

“We came out strong; they came out stronger,” BSU captain Kristine Grenier said. “It’s just the way it came today. If we played them again I’m sure we’d give them a different game. They came out strong and that’s just the way it went.”

Karley Sylvester, a native of Warroad, Minn., broke through for Wisconsin again with 2.4 seconds left in the frame, making it a 3-0 game heading into the third period. Sylvester jabbed at the puck in a scrum in front of the net and finally knocked it in past Mowat.

“All my linemates and the defense were working hard to get the puck to the net and luckily I got my stick on it and it went through the goalie’s legs,” Sylvester said. “As the team that gets the goal, it’s huge. You get to come in the locker room with a lot of energy and you kind of have to settle everyone down after that and say, ‘Hey, there’s still another period to go,’ but that was a big goal.”

Wisconsin scored again just four minutes into the final period to silence the Beavers’ hopes of building a comeback. Nurse worked a 2-on-1 with Katarina Zgraja, and the puck deflected off of Mowat’s skate and in.

In all, Nurse scored four goals and six points this weekend and was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player for her efforts.

“It’s nice that she gets rewarded,” Johnson said of Nurse’s play this weekend. “It was probably a month ago, she was getting the same type of opportunities and for whatever reason the puck wasn’t going in. She kept pushing herself and creating opportunities, and this weekend played very well and was a big factor in why we won the tournament.”

Coming into the season, Scanlan said that he didn’t really set many expectations for his new club in his first year at the helm.

“It was all new to me,” he said. “I just hoped that we could put a team on the ice that people in the Bemidji State community would want to come and watch. From that standpoint I certainly thought we far exceeded expectations.”

The Beavers will end the 2014-15 season just one game short of the national tournament with a program-best record of 21-17-1.

“You can’t measure your success on the last game,” Scanlan said. “I view this as a very, very successful year in a lot of different ways. Certainly the growth of our team and the fact that we were able to play in this game. From that standpoint it was a very, very successful year, no question.”

The Badgers, who have not played for a championship since 2012, captured their first WCHA title since 2011 in the victory. The win meant a lot to the team’s seniors, as they got the chance to play in the Final Face-Off championship game for the first time in their careers.

“To come out yesterday and beat a hard-working North Dakota team, that was big for us,” Sylvester said. “That carried over into today’s game and all the energy we had like Sarah was saying, it’s easy to feed off that on the bench and onto the ice, and everyone came to play today. It’s amazing that we can take this trophy back home with us.”

The post Beavers fall to Badgers in title game appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Nurse’s two goals lead Wisconsin past North Dakota in WCHA semifinals

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — A balanced attack through three periods of play led the No. 3 Wisconsin women’s hockey team to a 4-1 win over No. 8 North Dakota in the semifinals of the WCHA Final Face-Off.

Sophomore forward Sarah Nurse led the Badgers with two goals on the night as they scored three unanswered to open up a 3-0 lead and move on to the championship game.

“I thought for 60 minutes we battled hard and we did a lot of good things,” Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson. “The players got rewarded for their efforts, so we’re pleased to move on to tomorrow afternoon’s game and look forward to the competition against Bemidji.”

With the win, Wisconsin improves to 27-6-4 on the season. The loss all but ends North Dakota’s season, as it does not have a high enough PairWise ranking to earn an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.

“I thought we came out with a lot of heart,” UND senior captain Andrea Dalen said. “We didn’t get the bounces we wanted but I thought we fought and kept going the whole game and I’m proud of the team for that.”

Defenseman Melissa Channell opened up the scoring for the Badgers over halfway through the first period, with a big one-timer that beat UND goaltender Shelby Amsley-Benzie up high.

“Those are the things you’re looking for in these types of games,” Johnson said. “When you get an opportunity, somebody steps up and makes a big play. Certainly her shot was earmarked for the top corner and for us, coming in here and getting the first goal was a big confidence builder.”

Sydney McKibbon doubled Wisconsin’s lead about four minutes into the second period, and the Badgers headed into the intermission with a sizeable advantage.

Midway through the third period, Nurse put Wisconsin up 3-0 with a power-play goal, marking the first time in seven games that Amsley-Benzie has given up more than two.

North Dakota got one back when Tori Williams scored an extra-attacker goal with 4:23 left on the clock. The Badgers quickly halted any momentum that may have been building for UND, however, as Nurse scored her second of the night into an empty net just over a minute later.

“They’re obviously playing for their season and so I think once they got that goal, we needed to come out and have a comeback for them and we responded well,” Nurse said.

Even with the late pressure from UND, Wisconsin goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens stood tall in net, and the Badgers took care of the little things to stay in control of the game.

“I think my team did a great job just icing the puck, just making sure they got it out of the zone,” Desbiens said. “I think overall it was a great team effort at the end to make sure they didn’t score any other goals.”

North Dakota was clearly frustrated by Wisconsin for most of the night even though it held a 27-26 edge in shots. Playing from behind after the first 12 minutes proved to be costly.

“If you look back on all of the games with Wisconsin, when they play with a lead, for big chunks of it, it’s tough sledding when you’re coming from behind,” UND coach Brian Idalski said. “They’re a really good team defensively; they have good goaltending. So we wanted to play with a lead and we weren’t able to do that.”

Desbiens finished the night with 26 saves for the Badgers, while Amsley-Benzie, a Warroad, Minn., native, made 22 stops for North Dakota.

Despite the result on Saturday, UND saw some big improvements over the course of the year, and ends the season at 22-12-3 after being 4-6-2 at one point in late November.

“It is by far the most growth of a group start to finish that I’ve ever been a part of, as a coach and maybe as a player,” Idalski said.” I have a lot of respect for our leaders, our captains, and our seniors.”

North Dakota also experienced more than its fair share of adversity this season, and Idalski is proud of the way his team came together in spite of it.

“Success isn’t dictated by what your record is,” he said. “These kids, dealing with adversity and with a teammate being injured, with a teammate losing her father, those are traumatic things for anybody. For them to turn around and play a hockey game on top of that, they’re solid kids and those experiences are going to serve them very well as adults well beyond their time here, and really bonded them this year. So when you start to talk about success, that’s a success.”

With the victory on Saturday night, Wisconsin advances to the WCHA championship game for the first time since 2011, and will have its first opportunity since then to take home some postseason hardware.

“The team’s excited to play in a championship game,” Johnson said. “I know for our seniors, it’s been a few years, and so it’s an opportunity for them to play for a trophy tomorrow afternoon. They need to be excited about that. It doesn’t happen very often in our sport and when you get a chance, you want to make the most of those opportunities.”

The post Badgers earn date with Bemidji State appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Photos courtesy of Brent Cizek

[See image gallery at minnesotahockeymag.com]

The post Final Faceoff Gallery: Wisconsin vs. North Dakota appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Photos courtesy of Brent Cizek

[See image gallery at minnesotahockeymag.com]

The post Final Faceoff Gallery: Bemidji State vs. Minnesota appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.