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Fight mars another bad weekend for Huskies
By Ben Birnell
Published:
Monday, February 17, 2003
St. Valentine's Day weekend brought some tough competition to town as the SCSU women's hockey team squared off against the No. 7 University of Wisconsin Badgers.
The weekend would be the site to yet another wash for the Huskies as UW swept the two-game series 4-3 and 9-2. In grand fashion, the Badgers kicked the Huskies out of contention for a playoff berth.
It was the Badger offense that was kicked into high gear first when Wisconsin got on the board at the 4:01 mark in the second period Friday. Amy Vermeulen would pick off an errant Husky pass at the top of the slot in the Husky zone, creating a two-on-none.
Vermeulen deked out SCSU goaltender Laura Gieselman and fit the puck just through her legs for an early 1-0 lead for UW.
Wisconsin added another goal at the 8:12 mark when Vermeulen got a pass from Kathryn Greaves, then pumped it over to the uncovered Kathy Devereaux, who promptly put the biscuit in the basket with a nice backhander for her fifth of the year and second point of the afternoon.
UW would add a little icing to their lead with almost two minutes remaining in the second period. With Gieselman screened, Devereaux somehow got a stick on a pass from Sis Paulsen to put the Badgers up by three.
But with all good things in a solid period (three goals), came a tough assignment: killing off eight minutes of penalties. That's just what Wisconsin had to do, and they rose to the occasion. Badger head coach Mark Johnson was happy with the way his team killed them off.
"We're not a team that is known to take a lot of penalties," Johnson said of his team. "You have to give the players who were out there a lot of credit because it's tough. Coming out of there with a 3-0 lead was probably the difference in the game."
SCSU head coach Jason Lesteberg agreed.
"We felt being down 3-0 was because of our power play. We'd get into the zone and try to be individualistic. We'd try to take it to the net by ourselves and we weren't utilizing everybody out there," Lesteberg said.
The Huskies would try to make a game out of it in the third period scoring two goals to cut the lead back to one. After having to kill off two of their own penalties early in the frame, sophomore Tina Ciraulo helped her team get on the board when she did her best impression of a cornerback, picking off a pass along the UW right wing boards.
She then sent the puck soaring over to freshman Katie Hauge in the slot. Hauge quickly swatted the puck into the net to cut the lead to 3-1.
Sophomore Melanie Pudsey cut it to 3-2 at the 4:17 mark when she got a pass from senior Erin McNamara behind the net, skated around and back-handed it in for her ninth goal of the season.
Lesteberg pulled Gieselman with 1:08 to play, but the extra attacker for the Huskies didn't make much of a difference. The final minutes of the third period would get a little chippy, and even cause a little extracurricular activity at center ice between both teams.
As a player from the Huskies and Badgers argued back and forth, it soon escalated into a mini royal rumble. After the dust settled and order was restored, the referees would hand out six penalties, four being giving to the Huskies alone.
McNamara was given a minor and major for cross-checking and a game disqualification. That game carried over into Saturday's. The penalty was later changed, however, as video replay showed McNamara was not involved in the original free-for-all and was allowed to play.
Video also showed that UW defenseman Kerry Weiland, clearly throwing two punches and landing one, had hit assistant referee Lisa Schlatter in the head with her stick while being pulled away from the post game festivities. Weiland would only receive a two-minute roughing penalty and was allowed to play Saturday.
After the game, Lesteberg said he felt his team didn't play a full 60 minutes, something which he has stressed all season long.
"It's probably our toughest loss of the season because I felt we outplayed them for quite a while," Lesteberg said. "We didn't bury them. We shot into (Wisconsin goaltender Jackie) MacMillan's glove several times where, if we go upstairs, they're goals."
On Saturday the Huskies celebrated Senior Day in honor of Abby Cooper, Jennifer Swanson, Erin McNamara, Amanda Mathison and Laura Gieselman.
All five Huskies were honored before the start of the game and it marked the last time they would play in front of a home crowd at the National Hockey Center.
The day turned out to be anything but grand for the seniors as the Huskies were shelled for nine goals, seven coming in the second period alone.
The game would see SCSU change goaltenders twice on the day as Gieselman was replaced midway through the second period by freshman Brie Anderson. Anderson would allow five goals, only to be replaced at the start of the third by Gieselman again.
The Huskies appeared to get on the board when McNamara broke free and skated into the Wisconsin zone. Senior Kobi Kawamoto was trailing behind. McNamara pumped in the goal, but it would be later waved off as Kawamoto would be called for obstruction interference.
That seemed to change the entire complexion of the game. SCSU finally got two power play goals on the board in the third, but it was too late as the Badgers were already up by nine.
After it was all said and done, Lesteberg was obviously not happy with the outcome. "We played like a team that had already been eliminated from the playoffs," he said.
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