EAST LANSING, MI and MINNEAPOLIS, MN (WSAU) — The Wisconsin hockey teams can both call themselves regular-season conference champions after the men topped Michigan State on Saturday, while the women will play for the WCHA tournament title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Women’s Hockey National Championship this afternoon.
In the WCAH Tourney semis, Wisconsin jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on Minnesota en route to a 5-3 win. Makenna Webster scored two goals; Sophie Shirley and Britta Curl each added one goal. Curl also scored an assist in the contest.
No Badger finished the game with more than two points. Kennedy Blair stopped 23 of 26 shots faced.
The Badgers finished 2/5 on the power play while Minnesota was 0/1.
Wisconsin will take on Ohio State for the WCHA Tournament title at 2 PM.
Meanwhile, the Badger men locked up the Big Ten regular-season title with a 2-1 win over Michigan State thanks to two goals from Cole Caufield.
The Spartans struck first early in the second period on a goal from Charlie Combs. Caufield answered late in the period by cashing in a power play opportunity off a feed from Linus Weissbach and Ty Pelton-Byce. The Stevens Point native then put away the winner near the midway point of the third.
Cameron Rowe made 40 saves in the contest.
The win secures a worst-to-first turnaround for the Badgers who finished 7th in the Big Ten Conference last year. It’s Wisconsin’s first regular-season conference title since winning the 2000 WCHA title, and just their fourth in program history.
Wisconsin earns the lone first-round bye in the Big Ten tournament, which begins next week. First-round games will be played on Sunday and match the fourth-seeded Notre Dame against #5 Penn State, second-seeded Minnesota against #7 Michigan State, and #3 Michigan vs #6 Ohio State.
Wisconsin will play the winner of ND/Penn State on Monday at 3:30 PM with pregame coverage beginning at 3 on WSAU. The Big Ten tournament championship will be played Tuesday, March 16th at 8 PM. If Wisconsin is playing, coverage will begin at 7:30 on WSAU.
All tournament games will be hosted by Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana.
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