March 12, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS, MN. --- The University of Minnesota's semifinal victory Saturday gained far more than the right to face Wisconsin in Sunday's Womens' WCHA playoff championship game. When the Golden Gophers slipped past archrival Minnesota-Duluth 2-1 in the second semifinal, the victory almost certainly clinched a home-ice berth for next weekend's NCAA quarterfinals as well.

Wisconsin, the league's top seed, sped past St. Cloud State 9-0, before the dramatic Gopher victory over UMD, which came when Janelle Philipczyk deflected Gigi Marvin's shot past Bulldog all-WCHA goaltender Riitta Schaublin with 3:55 left in the third period.

Jessica Koizumi stop by Kim Hanlon

The goal came on a heads-up play by Philipczyk, a sophomore from Eagan High School, who was in traffic in the left circle when she saw Marvin - the WCHA freshman-of-the-year from Warroad, Minn. - about to gain possession. Philpczyk broke for the net, and surprisingly, no Bulldog skater went with her.

"When Gigi got to the puck, I yelled for her to shoot," said Philpczyk.

Marvin, by coincidence, had been a playmaker who has been urged repeatedly to shoot more by coach Laura Halldorson. "I heard Jay (Philpczyk) yelling, `Shoot the puck!' but my back was to the net as I got to the puck," said Marvin. "There were a lot of people over there, so I just got the puck and shot."

Philipczyk tipped the shot in, and coach Halldorson said, dryly, "I'm glad she listened to her teammate."

UMD had taken a 1-0 lead when Noemie Marin converted the rebound after Gopher goaltender Kim Hanlon blocked Jessica Koizumi's shot at 2:35 of the first period. The Badgers tied it on a power play at 7:56, when Ashley Albrecht's shot was deflected in by Andrea Nichols.

That set up the playoff title matchup between the Gophers, at 27-9-1, against Wisconsin, 32-4-1.

"We haven't really thought about Wisconsin yet," said Halldorson, right after the victory. "That was a strong UMD team we beat, and we needed great goaltending and a solid penalty-kill. We're getting good penalty killing from players like Whitney Graft, Becky Wacker and Bobbi Ross."

Coming into the WCHA semifinals, the Gophers and Bulldogs were virtually deadlocked for the season. A Minnesota sweep over North Dakota on the final regular-season weekend created a tie for second with UMD,, when the Bulldogs won and tied at Minnesota State-Mankato. The Gophers won the tie-breaker with one more victory to become No. 2 seed behind league champ and No. 1 seed Wisconsin.

Riitta Schaublin stops Andrea Nichols

The outcome also affected national pairwise rankings, where Wisconsin stood third, the Gophers fourth and UMD fifth, following New Hampshire and St. Lawrence at 1-2. The NCAA selection committee generally follows the pairwise to select its top eight, although match-ups attempt to not send league opponents against each other. So the chances are good that the top four teams in the pairwise will get home ice for the first round, while the next four highest-ranked teams will go on the road to oppose them in best-of-three pairings scheduled for announcement Sunday night.

The stakes for the semifinal, therefore, meant that a UMD victory would undoubtedly lift the Bulldogs ahead of the Gophers, not only into the league playoff final but into a top-four pairwise and a home-ice slot for the NCAA. The Gophers, meanwhile, needed a victory to secure that top four slot.

Wisconsin might have remained third even by losing to St. Cloud State in the first semifinal, but the Badgers took no chances, and took no prisoners by crushing St. Cloud State's long-shot hopes for advancement with a 9-0 romp. Homestate senior Cyndy Kenyon scored four goals, and her center, Sara Bauer, had a goal and four assists.

Bauer, a junior from St. Catharines, Ontario, was named league most valuable player before the semifinals, and her 22 goals, 31 assists and 53 points have led the Badgers to a 32-4-1 record overall, after a 24-3-1 WCHA slate. St. Cloud State finished 18-18-1, after having swept UMD to ultimately cost the Bulldogs second place, and upsetting Wisconsin once in recent weeks.

The game started out scoreless, but at 13:33 of the first period Kenyon scored , and the Badgers were off and running, with freshman Jessie Vetter making 21 saves for the shutout. Junior goaltender Lauri St. Jacques, who had been St. Cloud State coach Jason Lesteberg's choice to play every game the last six weeks, after a seemingly successful alternating plan with sophomore Kendall Newell, was the victim of a flat performance by the Huskies, who were unable to contain the explosive Badgers. St. Jacques gave up five goals, and Newell, perhaps rusty from inactivity, yielded the last four.

The UMD-Minnesota game was clearly the highlight of the semifinals, and Minnesota had a clearcut edge in play, outshooting the Bulldogs 39-21 - including 14-2 in the decisive third period. UMD coach Shannon Miller brushed the shot count aside, and said, "We had the puck in the offensive zone and set up good scoring opportunities for a lot of the first 10 minutes of the third period, but the shot count never moved."

Miller said she was proud of her team's hard work, and the difference was clearcut: "We were 0-for-5 on the power play, and they were 1-for-6. That was the difference."

However, the Bulldogs had an amazing penchant for shooting directly into Gopher defenders time after time throughout the game, and if the Bulldog shot count was unfairly low, it seemed that the Gophers blocked far more than the eight third-period tries and 17 for the game - which meant Minnesota had nine shots blocked and 39 shots on goal, while UMD had 17 shots blocked and only 21 that got through to the net.

"I noticed that they were only given two shots in the third period," said Minnesota freshman goaltender Kim Hanlon. "It seems like I noticed 20 times, at least, they wound up and shot. My teammates did a great job of blocking shots."

Marin said: "They're good defensively, and it did seem that we'd go right into them."

Koizumi noted that she and her teammates seemed to wind up not getting to the net on their offensive attempts, despite being inspired by the televised Minnesota state high school boys hockey tournament games they had been watching. She said she didn't think the Gophers did anything better defensively in the game, compared to their regular-season games, in which Minnesota won 4-1 then lost 6-0 at Ridder Arena, and the Gophers lost 4-2 but rebounded to win 2-0 at Duluth.

"We've been watching a lot of high school games, and realized they seemed to shoot from anywhere and scored a lot of goals," Koizumi said. "So we wanted to try to shoot a lot."

If that ploy was foiled by bad decisions by UMD shooters or vastly improved play by the Gopher defense, coach Miller knows that going home with a 22-8-3 record assures her Bulldogs of a spot in the NCAA pairings. "But I'm sure we'll be on the road, too," she said. "I'm guessing we'll go somewhere like St. Lawrence. We've got another week to work on some new power-play things we've put in. I know you've got to work to create your own breaks, but we haven't gotten many bounces in the last few weeks."

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