ST. PETER, Minn. – New day, same story. For the second straight game the Gustavus women’s hockey team Saturday shut out St. Catherine 3-0 to complete the series sweep and clinch a spot in the MIAC playoffs. With their third consecutive shutout, the Gusties improve to 15-2-4 overall and 9-2-3 in the MIAC, while the Wildcats drop to 6-14-1 overall and 5-8-1 in the league.
“We haven’t had a sweep in a while so that was good and we need two points each game now,” Head Coach Mike Carroll said. “We got off to a good start today and we were doing some really nice things and then they gave us a nice push. We did talk after the game there were some things toward the end of the game that we got away with. Our goalie made some nice saves and we were able to get the shutout, but as we keep going deeper in the season those are the kinds of things we need to continue to work on in practice.”
Gustavus scored the game-winning goal 8:11 into the first period on its first power play opportunity of the afternoon. Diana Draayer (Sr., Deephaven, Minn.) made a perfect back-door pass to a wide-open Kristen Cash (So., Roseville, Minn.) who buried the puck for her fifth goal of the season. Four minutes later Erica Power (Sr., Lakeville, Minn.) and Kaitlyn Klein (Sr., Plymouth, Minn.) went back-and-forth in front of the net and Klein put home her team-leading 19th goal of the season. Midway through the second period, Power scored her eighth goal of the season on another nice assist from Draayer and that would be the final goal of the game.
The Gusties dominated the shots again, 49-15, over the Wildcats. Amanda DiNella (Jr., Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.) earned her third straight shutout and 13th of her career after making 15 saves. St. Kate’s had only one power play opportunity, while the Gusties went 1-for-5 on the skater advantage. Gustavus did well on the dots, winning 32-of-50 faceoffs.
The Blank and Gold has a critical road series next weekend at Concordia as its jockeys for playoff seeding. Friday’s game in Moorhead, Minn. starts at 7 p.m. and Saturday’s matinée is at 2 p.m.