Brian Moos / Program Director

St. Cloud State women’s hockey returned home for their first major test of the season, unfortunately they did not pass. The defending national champions, the Ohio State Buckeyes, would win comfortably 5-1. Buckeye forwards Joy Dunne and Jordyn Petrie would each score two goals, leading OSU to victory.

There weren’t many positives touched on after the game. “Overall, [when] you let a team like that get going and play downhill, that made it a lot easier for them,” said head coach Brian Idalski.

Grace Wolfe scored a powerplay goal in the first period, which was also the Huskies’ first shot on goal. Goalie Sanni Ahola looked strong for most of the contest, even while under siege from OSU’s offense, she saved 42 shots.

Ohio State bested St. Cloud State in nearly every statistical category. The Buckeyes outshot the Huskies 84-16 on the night, shots on goal were 47-10. Faceoffs favored OSU as well, 32-17. Ohio State also drew seven powerplays, scoring on two of them, compared to SCSU’s two. Those seven powerplays included a five-on-three powerplay early in the second period. Resulting from Ella Anick getting tagged with a minor, then Ally Qualley making things worse by committing a major checking-from-behind penalty. After the game, coach Idalski remarked, “I don’t know if we pushed them [Ohio State] as much as we could or should have.”

Coach Idalski contextualized Friday’s loss with his team’s season at large, “You’re always getting better or worse, we’ve got to decide which one we want to do tomorrow. Every year, certain games define you, certain games show you what you have in your group. Those games are never blowout wins, they’re never from easy games, they’re from games like this.”

The Huskies will look to Saturday to right some wrongs, as they take on Ohio State again at 1 pm. You can listen to coverage of the series finale on 97.5 RadioX.