Dartmouth Women's Hockey Falls in NCAA Semifinals to Minnesota

March 25, 2005

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DURHAM, N.H. - The Dartmouth women's hockey team saw its national championship hopes come to an end on Friday night as the Big Green lost in an NCAA Semifinal to Minnesota, 7-2, at the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore Center.

The Big Green (27-7-0) completes its season in the national third-place game against St. Lawrence on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Minnesota (35-2-2), the defending national champion, advances to Sunday's national championship game against Harvard at 4 p.m.

The game marked Dartmouth's fourth semifinal loss in as many tries during the last five seasons. Dartmouth had handed Minnesota one of its two losses this season, knocking off the Golden Gophers on Dec. 11 in Hanover, 7-5.

Junior Kate Lane (Wingham, Ont.) made 17 saves for Dartmouth while Jody Horak had eight stops for Minnesota.

The Big Green fell behind early and tried to play catch up for most of the first. Minnesota's Natalie Darwitz scored 13 seconds into the game and at 2:21 before helping the Golden Gophers go up, 3-0, at 4:50. Darwitz sent a crossing pass that Lane dropped, and Kelly Stephens poked the rebound into the net.

"Minnesota hurt us early and playing catch up is hard to do," Dartmouth head coach Mark Hudak said.

Dartmouth got on the board at 7:23 when junior Gillian Apps (Unionville, Ont.) skated into the Minnesota zone and sent a high shot that Horak saved, but the puck ricocheted a few feet into the air above Horak and bounced to the ice and trickled in.

Minnesota continued applying pressure. Lyndsay Wall scored on the power play at 8:42 before a crossing pass deflected off a Dartmouth player and past a surprised Lane at 13:12 to make the score 5-1.

Right before intermission, Dartmouth cut its deficit back to three. Junior Cherie Piper (Scarborough, Ont.) drilled home a slap shot from the left circle during a power play. Classmate Katie Weatherston (Thunder Bay, Ont.) assisted.

In the second period, the Big Green did not convert on two power-play opportunities. Neither team mustered much offensively, each firing three shots on net.

Minnesota had a potential power-play goal disallowed at 19:12 because of a crease violation but still led after two, 5-2.

In the third, Minnesota scored twice to increase its lead. The first Golden Gopher goal of the stanza came on the power play at 11:36 when Kazmaier Award finalist Krissy Wendell scored her second of the game, with assists going to Wall and Stephens.

Minnesota put the game away at 18:56 when Jenelle Philipczyk went top shelf on Lane. Becky Wacker and Liz Palkie both picked up assists.

"I don't think we played poorly," Hudak said. "I wish we'd played better, obviously, but Minnesota is a very, very good team."

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