Back in November, Ohio State came into Madison and surprised many by playing toe-to-toe with Wisconsin. Friday night the two teams met again in Columbus, but this time there were not any surprises, as top-ranked Wisconsin (13-2-1 WCHA, 17-2-1 overall), behind two goals each by Jenny Ryan and Annie Pankowski, thrashed Ohio State (4-10-2, 8-10-2) by a score of 7-0.
“Last time we played Ohio State we played extremely well both nights, setup well and you can’t explain some nights why the puck goes in and other nights the same opportunities don’t go in,” head coach Mark Johnson told UWBadgers.com. “But, if you continue to do the little things and get to the net to create those opportunities, eventually they go in."
After exploding for eight goals against No. 2 Minnesota last Sunday, the Badgers didn’t let up against the Buckeyes. Ryan started the scoring frenzy for UW, with a snipe past Ohio State goalie Kassidy Sauve. Less than four minutes later, sophomore forward Sam Cogan tapped in a rebound to give Wisconsin a 2-0 first period lead.
Sauve was under siege for most of the second period, leading to four Badger goals. Pankowski added her first goal of the game with a put back past the Buckeye goalie. Thirteen seconds later, Emily Clark, who had five points in the game, netted her fifth goal of the season to give Wisconsin a 4-0 lead. With five minutes remaining in the period, Ryan, and then later Pankowski each netted their second goal of the game to send the Badgers to the third period with a 6-0 lead.
“We really carried our momentum from last weekend when we scored a lot of goals against a really good team, so we just kept going,” Ryan said. “We were shooting pucks and getting people in front of the net to screen the goalie. Those were just little things that we keep working on that are working well for us this weekend.”
Junior forward Baylee Wellhausen wrapped up the Badger scoring with a third period goal—her third in the last two games. Senior goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens stopped all 14 shots to earn her seventh shutout of the season—tied for the most in the NCAA this season.
There was no letdown for the Badgers in the second game, as five different players scored for No. 1 Wisconsin in their final game of 2016, a 5-0 win over Ohio State in Columbus.
Wisconsin started the game strong, outshooting the Buckeyes 14-7 in the first period, but failed to beat OSU’s star goaltender Sauve. The second period started much the same, until freshman Alexis Mauermann took a pass from Wellhausen and put it past Sauve for the first goal of the game.
Just under six minutes later, Pankowski made the score 2-0, her 10th goal in seven games since returning from a stint with the U.S. national team. Just 20 seconds later, Wellhausen lit the lamp to push Wisconsin’s lead to three goals. Freshman Presley Norby tallied her fourth goal of the season with just under three minutes left to finish the scoring in the frame. The Badgers dominance in the period was complete, as they outshot Ohio State 20-1.
"It's awesome to have such balance," Pankowski said to UWBadgers.com. "We had everyone playing, so everyone had the opportunity to put the puck in the net and that's what makes us so great, that everyone can score and it's not down to one or two lines."
Senior Mikayla Johnson continued the scoring in the third period to give the Badgers a five-goal lead they would hold for the remainder of the game.
Wisconsin played one of its best games of the year defensively, surrendering only 11 shots, and only four in the final 40 minutes of the game, giving Desbiens an easy day en route to her 46th career shutout.
"They only got two or three shots in the last two periods, so we played really well as a team," Desbiens said to UWBadgers.com. "I think we did really well this weekend. we did the little things right … Even if we were winning by a lot our players kept up their good habits."
Wisconsin now rests for almost a month, before taking on Lindenwood in Wentzville, Missouri, Jan. 6 and 7 to kick off 2017.
