The Ohio State women’s hockey team celebrates together after a goal against St. Lawrence Friday. The Buckeyes won 5-1 at OSU Ice Rink in Columbus, Ohio. Credit: Courtesy of Ohio State Athletics
Keeping its 13-game winning streak intact was exactly what the Buckeyes needed, and the Ohio State’s women’s ice hockey team did just that with two victories against the St. Lawrence Saints.
No. 1 Ohio State (13-1-0, 10-0-0, WCHA) found success after beating No. 6 St. Lawrence (12-5-0, 6-0-0 ECAC) 5-1 on Saturday at St. John Arena. However, compared to Friday’s 11-0 shutout versus the Saints, it wasn’t the execution assistant coach Kelsey Cline was looking for.
“We were very sloppy at the start, I mean, credit to St. Lawrence,” Cline said. “First and second period wasn’t Buckeye hockey, there were things we needed to clean, but we addressed those during second and third. Proud of them for figuring it out, solving that and getting back to it.”
Within the first 15 minutes of the match, freshman forward Joy Dunne scored the first point with an assist from freshman forward Jordan Baxter. Dunne has kept the ball rolling since scoring her first career goal against Bemidji State.
The Buckeyes relied heavily on offense, having outshot the Saints 27-2 on goal in just the first period, with senior goalie Amanda Thiele making two stops on St. Lawrence’s power plays.
“When we’re at home, we want to make that a really difficult place for people to play,” Cline said. “When we can get our offense of opportunities, we want to put on that pressure and make that team not want to be in our rink.”
St. Lawrence scored its only goal of the weekend on a power play at the 8:50 mark in the second period. Ohio State added 11 attempted shots in the second but was unsuccessful in scoring.
Freshman forward Jocelyn Amos picked the pace back up with a tie-breaking goal in the third period. Amos recovered the puck from St. Lawrence, which had 30 seconds left in its power play, and scored off of her own rebound.
Graduate forward Hannah Bilka then set up a clean shot for her fellow graduate forward Jennifer Gardiner. Passed to her across the ice, Gardiner built up momentum from the top of the faceoff circle and followed through to put the Buckeyes back in the lead.
Gardiner is the first Buckeye to hit 20 points this season and furthered her point streak to 10 games after Saturday.
Senior forward Makenna Webster pushed the Buckeyes to 4-1 after scoring at the 15:42 mark.
To close out the match, senior forward Jenna Buglioni scored the final point with less than a minute left.
This weekend was Ohio State’s last non conference matchup of the season. The Buckeyes play again on their home ice to go up against No. 10 St. Cloud State Friday at 6 p.m., and Saturday at 3 p.m.
