The Gophers women's hockey team, which moved up to No. 1 this week, routed Bemidji State 7-0 on Friday night at Ridder Arena for its 13th consecutive victory over the Beavers. Minnesota broke the game open with four goals in a 6½-minute stretch in the middle of the third period.
The victory, coupled with Wisconsin's 3-0 loss to Minnesota Duluth, moved the Gophers into first place in the WCHA.
"A little bit of a slow start," Gophers coach Brad Frist said, "but we were able to get those couple of goals to get us going. The second period was good and the third was even better. Lauren [Bench] played great in net in her 100th start — to get a shutout too was pretty special. A great job getting the three points and we're looking forward to tomorrow."
The Gophers (21-7-1, 16-6-1 WCHA) scored first in a game for the 23rd time this season. Freshman Peyton Hemp got the goal, her 10th of the season. Abigail Boreen made it 2-0 with her 16th goal with 1:34 left in the first. And that's how the opening period ended — a good sign. Minnesota came into this series 16-0-1 when leading after the first
Sophomore Audrey Wethington's goal midway through the second increased the lead to 3-0. It was her seventh goal. Taylor Heise got her second assist of the game on the play, giving her 48 points this season.
Catie Skaja started the scoring flurry in the final period with a power-play goal at 7:07, followed by goals from Amy Potomak, Hemp again and Savannah Norcross.
Bench, a graduate student who played four seasons for the Beavers before transferring before the 2020-21 season, made 26 saves in her second shutout this season.
Kerigan Dowhy stopped 43 shots — 18 in the second period — for the Beavers (10-14-3, 7-14-2).
The Gophers are in first in the WCHA because they now have the best winning percentage, .768, with five games left. They play Bemidji State again Saturday, then finish with two home-and-home series with St. Cloud State and St. Thomas.
The conference went to winning percentage instead of a points system because of the imbalance in games teams will play this season because of pandemic-caused postponments.
Ohio State is second (.762) in the league race, Wisconsin (.727) third.
