STEVENS POINT, Wis. – Five different players scored as the UW-Stevens Point women's hockey team earned its second-straight trip to the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championship game with a 5-0 win over UW-Superior in the second game of the semifinals on Saturday night at Ice Hawks Arena.
Box ScoreUW-Stevens Point (18-7-2) raced out to a 2-0 lead in the first seven minutes of the game and never looked back. The Pointers had won the opener over UW-Superior (15-12-0) by a 2-1 score on Friday night.
With the win, the second-seeded Pointers will take on top-seeded UW-River Falls, which swept UW-Eau Claire in the other semifinal, on Saturday, March 7 in River Falls for the WIAC Championship and the O'Brien Cup. The Falcons topped the Pointers 5-1 in the title game last season, also in River Falls.
Ali Biagini (Stillwater, MN/Stillwater) scored the only goal UW-Stevens Point would need on the night, scoring 2:35 into the game after being set up by
Megan Menotti (Vernon Hills, IL/Chicago Mission) and
Kat Nejedlo (Fond du Lac, WI/Fond du Lac).
Betsy Anderson (Farmington, MN/Farmington) doubled UWSP's advantage with an unassisted power-play goal at 6:51.
Before the first period was over,
Rachel Reynard (Hortonville, WI/Hortonville) stretched the lead to 3-0 from
Meredith Ingbretson (Hayward, WI/Hayward) and
Emily Lester (Eau Claire, WI/Memorial).
The score would remain 3-0 until midway through the second period, when Menotti found Lester for a power-play goal at 10:12.
Shauna Bollinger (Menomonie, WI/Menomonie) put the final goal on the board from Anderson and Reynard 1:20 later.
Janna Beilke-Skoug (Madison, WI/East) took care of the rest, recording her fourth shutout of the season with a 29-save performance. Megan Leikkari took the loss, giving up four goals in 30:12 before giving way to Sky Brown. Both goaltenders made seven saves for the Yellowjackets.
The teams combined for 18 penalties and 44 penalty minutes in the game. UWSP went 2-for-11 on the power play, while UWS was 0-for-4.
