MINNEAPOLIS — The Wisconsin Badgers advanced to their fourth straight WCHA Championship game with a 4-1 win over Bemidji State on Saturday afternoon.
Senior captain Baylee Wellhausen scored her second-career hat trick to lead the Badgers in the win. Five of her 10 goals this season have come at Ridder Arena. A Wisconsin native, Wellhausen said she gets an extra boost of energy when it comes to being in enemy territory.
She opened the scoring just :41 into the game. Sophomore Abby Roque carried the puck up the boards to the left of Bemidji State goalie Kerigan Dowhy’s and Wellhausen was left all alone right in front. Roque fed her and the shot trickled in to put the Badgers up early.
It was the third time in five meetings this season that Wisconsin scored on Bemidji in the opening minute of play.
Emma Terres scored the goal for Bemidji with 17 seconds left in a power play and 34 seconds left in the first period to keep the game tied heading into the first intermission. The Beavers dominated the faceoff battle in the first-period, which helped keep the Badgers from holding the puck and gaining momentum.
Wellhausen’s game winner was a short-handed goal midway through the second period. Roque won the puck and Mekensize Steffen tried to clear it. The puck jumped back to Roque in the neutral zone and Wellhausen used her speed to take off. The pass hit her in stride and she beat Dowhy to put Wisconsin ahead for good.
It was the first short-handed goal the Badgers scored all season and the second of Wellhausen’s career.
“That’s a little bit of a dagger and kills their momentum off that power play,” she said.
She completed her hat trick with an empty-net goal with 30 seconds to play in the game. The puck was loose in the Badger offensive end and Wellhausen just outskated the Bemidji defense to win the puck and give herself a chance to get it on net.
Wellhausen is a player coaches and teammates talk about in glowing terms. Though she’s not always on the scoresheet, Johnson has often cited her play along the boards and in the corners – the usually unheralded dirty work. On Saturday, she stepped a bit more into the spotlight.
“This time of year, somebody’s got to step up, somebody’s got to make a play, somebody’s got to score a goal,” said Johnson. That it was one of his senior captains was unsurprising.
Winning the regular season crown earned the Badgers a first-round bye in the WCHA playoffs. While some teams might not want to pause their season at such a crucial time, it was a fortuitous break for Wisconsin, who had multiple players banged up and needing that week of rest. This is also one of the youngest teams Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson has ever had and he said that bye week allowed his younger players to mentally get ready for the playoff atmosphere.
“Having the weekend off, you try to manage energy, you try to manage getting your players prepared,” he said. “Especially with a young team, you give them a little extra time to prepare for what’s ahead of them because for a lot of them, today was their first experience as a playoff team. It’s 1-1 at the start of the second period and I don’t know how they’re going to react. You hope they’re consistent and do things that they’ve done all year.”
Bemidji State has used all three of their goalies at different times throughout the season, but Dowhy, a freshman, played well for the Beavers as the season wound down, earning a tie against Wisconsin, beating Ohio State and taking two of three from Minnesota-Duluth in the first round of the WCHA tournament.
One major favor for Bemidji were blocked shots. The Badgers have put 30 or more shots on net in 24 games this season and with a young backstop, senior defender Alexis Joyce said limiting the pucks that got through was a major focus of the defense.
“It’s always huge. It’s always been something we take pride in. If you limit them … it’s huge… it’s something we take pride in. It definitely will help this program grow, because the less pucks get to our goalie, because the less pucks she sees, the less chance that they have to put them in the net,” she said.
Wisconsin will take on the winner of the second semi-final between Ohio State and Minnesota. The Buckeyes will likely receive an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament regardless of the outcome, but with Connecticut upsetting Boston College in the Hockey East Tournament earlier today, the Gophers need to win the WCHA Tournament and earn the conference’s auto-bid if they want to make the NCAA Tournament.
