Women’s hockey: Ohio State drops series finale to Bemidji State

Magee Sprague
Sun, 15 Jan 2017 16:44:57 +0000
Ice Hockey, Sports, Women's hockey, Bemidji State, Buckeyes, Dani Sadek, Kassidy Sauve, Nadine Muzerall, Ohio State women's hockey

OSU then-sophomore forward Lauren Spring (27) controls the puck during a game against Minnesota on Oct. 16, 2015 at the OSU Ice Rink. Credit: Courtesy of OSU Athletics

The Ohio State women’s hockey team entered Saturday with hopes of completing their first conference weekend sweep of the season. However, an early deficit put the Buckeyes (11-11-2, 5-11-2) in a hole they couldn’t dig out of against Bemidji State. Ohio State is now 2-2 against Bemidji State for the season, following Saturday’s 3-1 loss.

The Beavers (9-12-1, 5-12-1) came out attacking with four shots on goal in just the first four minutes of play. Haley Mack of Bemidji State scored the first goal. Shortly after, Bemidji State’s Lauren Miller broke away to score a one-on-one goal to put the Beavers up 2-0 with 12 minutes left in the period.

“We’re struggling with consistency,” coach Nadine Muzerall said. “When you’re playing in this league, you can’t take a shift off because everyone is so talented.”

The Buckeyes went on the power play early in the second period to no avail. There were five penalties in the second period between the two teams, three for OSU. Sophomore goaltender Kassidy Sauve kept the Beavers at bay with an impressive 17 saves for the period.

With 39.2 seconds left on the game clock in the second period, junior defenseman Dani Sadek scored the first and only goal of the game for the Buckeyes off of an assist from sophomore forward Maddy Field. Bemidji State led the game 2-1 going into the final period.

“We need to work on staying out of the box and playing with the same intensity the entire game that we did towards the end,” Field said.

Bemidji State scored its third and final goal of the game at the 11:19 mark of the third period. OSU was outshot 37-26.

Next up, the Buckeyes will travel to Minneapolis to take on the No. 2 Golden Gophers. OSU is 0-2 against Minnesota this season.

“We’re aware of who the Gophers are,” Muzerall said. “We need to stay out of the penalty box. We need to be a little bit more disciplined. Today we got away from our game in that sense because we are the second-(least) penalized team in the country, and today it didn’t look like that.”