WCHA Weekly Roundup: Jan. 17-18

Hope you have a broom on hand, as four of the WCHA teams swept the weekend. Plus another week in the WCHA meant yet another four goal performance!

Series of the Week

While there were plenty of sweeps this weekend, Ohio State vs. Minnesota Duluth earned Series of the Week because of the great performances on each team in this top-four ranked matchup. 

The Buckeyes walked away with a 3-1 win on Friday and a 2-1 win on Saturday. The Bulldogs entered Friday’s game with a 10 game winning streak, which came to an end. Jocelyn Amos scored on the power play less than two minutes into the game. A few minutes later, Riley Brengman added another goal to make it 2-0. Caitlin Kraemer found the back of the net for Duluth on the power play midway through the first to cut the deficit to one. After a quiet second period, the Bulldogs tried to score on two power play chances in the third but Ohio State shut them down. Later in the period, Duluth pulled goalie Éve Gascon for the extra attacker, but Buckeyes’ Kiara Zanon scored on the empty net to seal the win. The goalies put on excellent showings. Amanda Thiele made 19 saves and allowed one goal for her 10th win of the season for Ohio State. Minnesota Duluth’s Gascon made a career-best 58 saves in the game including 34 in the second period for a new program record. 

In Saturday’s game, the Buckeyes were looking for the series sweep. In the first period, Joy Dunne got the scoring started early with a goal a little under three minutes into the game for a 1-0 Ohio State lead. With one minute left in the first, Duluth’s Olivia Wallin scored on the power play to even the score. In the second period, Makenna Webster scored her sixth goal of the year for the go-ahead tally. But Minnesota Duluth would not go down without a fight. The Bulldogs were dealing with a flu outbreak and were left with four defenders by the end of the game. Duluth tried to pull through but they lost Hanna Baskin to injury and Olivia Mobley to a game misconduct too. Gascon put on another great performance once again in a loss by making 31 saves in the third period alone and 44 in total. Her 102 stops over the weekend is the most since current Minnesota Frost goaltender Maddie Rooney made 112 in the WCHA Final Face-Off in 2017.

Ohio State’s sweep is the second consecutive road sweep of the Bulldogs.

A look at the rest of the conference sweeps

Top-ranked Wisconsin traveled to Mendota Heights to face St. Thomas. The Badgers exploded with offense this weekend by scoring 17 goals in a 6-1 and an 11-1 win to sweep the Tommies. A lot of offense came from different players like Ava Murphy, who recorded five points in the sweep, and Casey O'Brien, who had four points on Saturday. But it was Laila Edwards who put on a show this weekend. In Friday’s game she tallied a goal and three assists. On Saturday, she recorded a hat trick then added another goal and an assist to bring her weekend points total to nine! She is the first player to record a natural hat trick since the 2021-22 season and she is one of only eight players in Badgers program history to record four or more goals in a game.

St. Cloud State was looking to bounce back after being swept by Minnesota Duluth last week. The Huskies hosted Bemidji State and began the series sweep with a bang by holding the Beavers off the board behind an Emilia Kyrkkö shutout for the 3-0 win. It is Kyrkkö’s third career shutout. Emma Gentry began the scoring in the first period with her first goal since Nov. 16. Sofianna Sundelin and Siiri Yrjölä each scored a power play goal in the second period. It was Yrjölä’s first career goal, and it gave the Huskies the three goal advantage and helped them earn their first win since Nov. 30. The Beavers were looking to split the series in Saturday’s game as they held on to a 2-0 lead midway through the second period. The Huskies came back and scored three unanswered goals, with the game-winner coming in the final minute of play as an empty netter from Sundelin for the 3-2 win. For the second-straight game, two of the three goals scored by St. Cloud came in the form of the power play, which went 2-for-4 in the game. It is the Huskies’ first sweep since Oct. 11-12, also against Bemidji.

In Minnesota’s weekend sweep of Minnesota State, the teams played a home-and-home series beginning at Ridder Arena on Friday. There the Gophers found the back of the net plenty of times with an 8-3 win over the Mavericks. Josefin Bouveng got the scoring started early with a goal two minutes into the contest. But Mankato answered back with an equalizer from Bella Shipley midway through the period, before Minnesota retook the lead with a goal from Emma Kreisz with less than a minute left in the period. The Gophers took control the rest of the game, out-scoring Minnesota State 6-2. Eight Minnesota players recorded multiple points in this win, including Chloe Primerano, who had a goal and an assist in her return from her gold medal winning experience at the U-18 Women’s World Championship. If you thought we were done with hat tricks, we are not! In Saturday’s game, Bouveng added to her three points from Friday with a hat trick in the 5-2 win over the Mavericks. Bouveng seems to enjoy scoring early, as for the second-straight game, she found the back of the net two minutes into the game. She then scored in each following period, and recorded her hat trick with an empty netter with 30 seconds left in the game for her second career hatty. She is the third Gopher to record a hat trick this season.

Around the Conference

Nominees were named for two awards around college hockey last week. The Hockey Humanitarian award nominees were announced on Jan. 14, and four of the 14 nominees come from the WCHA. The award is given to college hockey’s finest citizen, which is a student-athlete who makes a difference off the ice on their team and in their local communities through volunteerism. The winner will be announced in April.

The following are the nominees from the WCHA:

• Kendra Fortin, Bemidji State
• Audrey Wethington, Minnesota 
• Clara Van Wieren, Minnesota Duluth
• Makenna Webster, Ohio State

Four different programs around the conference were represented in the nominees list. Congratulations to these four for making a lasting impact in their communities!

Seven WCHA goaltenders were named to the watchlist for the 2025 Women’s Goalie of the Year award from the Hockey Commissioners Association. Nominees come from all five conferences in Division I women’s hockey. The criteria for this award is a goalie with a goals-against average of 2.10 or lower or a save percentage of .920 or higher.

The following are the seven who were named for the WCHA:

• Hannah Clark, Minnesota
• Tindra Holm, Minnesota Duluth 
• Ève Gascon, Minnesota Duluth 
• Hailey MacLeod, Ohio State 
• Sanni Ahola, St. Cloud State
• Emilia Kyrkkö, St. Cloud State 
• Ava McNaughton, Wisconsin 

Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth, St. Cloud State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin were the five programs represented in the watchlist, with the Bulldogs and Huskies both having two goalies named. Hannah Clark of Minnesota and Emilia Kyrkkö of St. Cloud State are both freshmen who have already grabbed the attention of women’s college hockey in their first year of play.

The list will be pared down over the following weeks with the winner announced in March. Congratulations to the WCHA representatives for an already outstanding season in net!

Weekly Awards

WCHA Forward of the Week: Laila Edwards — Wisconsin

If you score four goals in a game you will most likely win Forward of the Week! Right?! Right?!! (She also had 9 points this weekend too!)

WCHA Defender of the Week: Ava Murphy — Wisconsin

Murphy was named Defender of the Week after a five point weekend. She had a goal and an assist on Friday and three assists in Saturday's game. Murphy now has 17 points so far this season.

WCHA Goalie of the Week: Amanda Thiele — Ohio State

Thiele earned Goalie of the Week honors after a shutdown weekend on the road for Ohio State. She stopped 32 of 34 shots in the series and earned a .941 save percentage. Her record now stands at 11-4-2.

WCHA Rookie of the Week: Chloe Primerano - Minnesota

The gold medal winner did not skip a beat after rejoining the Gophers at the conclusion of the U-18 Women’s World Championship as she earned her first Rookie of the Week honor. She recorded a goal and two assists in Minnesota’s sweep of Minnesota State. The rookie now has 14 points on the season.

Looking Forward

There was a game on Tuesday between Ohio State and Mercyhurst which was a game that had been postponed from December which slipped my mind and will be in next week’s recap. For this upcoming weekend, Hockey Day Minnesota 2025 takes place on Saturday which includes Minnesota facing off against Bemidji State in Shakopee, Minn. The game will be broadcast on FanDuel Sports Network North instead of the usual B1G+

Weekly Scoreboard

Friday

Bemidji State 0, St. Cloud State 3
Minnesota State 3, Minnesota 8
Ohio State 3, Minnesota Duluth 1
Wisconsin 6, St. Thomas 1

Saturday

Bemidji State 2, St. Cloud State 3
Minnesota 5, Minnesota State 2
Ohio State 2, Minnesota Duluth 1
Wisconsin 11, St. Thomas 1

Full schedule here.