The final journey to repeat as national champions begins Saturday night for the Wisconsin women's hockey team (33-1-4) when it hosts Harvard (23-7-2) in the NCAA quarterfinals at the Kohl Center.
The Badgers won their second consecutive WCHA Playoff Championship last weekend, knocking off Ohio State and Minnesota, while Harvard recently lost to St. Lawrence in the ECAC playoffs.
This quarterfinal meeting sees two of the three Patty Kazmaier Award finalists in Wisconsin senior forward Sara Bauer and Harvard senior forward Julie Chu.
Chu has one more point in six fewer games than Bauer this season, good enough for third in the nation and, along with Harvard sophomore forward Sarah Vaillancourt, who is fifth in the country in scoring, will be the focus of the Badger defense.
Junior forward Jinelle Zaugg claims the team is not focusing too much on the individual opposing players and feels that Wisconsin needs to worry more about themselves and not as much about Harvard.
""We don't really worry too much about who they are as much as how we're going to play our game. We have to respect them a little bit ... but they have to respect us just as much,"" Zaugg said.
Freshman forward Meghan Duggan, tied for second on the Badgers in scoring, also believes Wisconsin cannot cater specifically to Chu and Vaillancourt.
""Our team knows that they're two of their top guns and I think we just need to focus on playing our game and just keep an eye out for them. We can't change our game that much because what we've been doing is great,"" Duggan said. ""If we just bring what we have and just keep doing what we've been practicing and doing what we've been coached to do then I think we're going to succeed.""
The Crimson balances its offense with the second-best defense in the nation in terms of goals allowed, second to the Badgers.
An advantage the Badgers may have is that its home ice is bigger than Harvard's. A larger rink can make offensive execution difficult for teams not accustomed to the size of the ice sheet. Duggan thinks this could play in as an advantage for Wisconsin.
""I think we have the advantage here, playing on the big sheet,"" she said. ""We play here all the time, so I think we're used to it. Hopefully it will catch them off guard a little bit and they'll have a tough time passing and skating.""
Harvard's weakness is its inability to compete with the top teams. The Crimson played nine games this season against teams in the NCAA Tournament and came away with just two wins, both over Minnesota-Duluth. UMD is the only tournament team Wisconsin played this season and the Badgers won two of its four games against the Bulldogs.
The winner will head to Lake Placid, New York, for the NCAA Frozen Four and will play the winner of New Hampshire and St. Lawrence in the national semifinals. Last year, Wisconsin beat St. Lawrence 1-0 in the Frozen Four to advance to the national championship game.
The puck drops Saturday at 7 p.m.
