The top-ranked University of Wisconsin women's hockey team entered its game with the No. 7 University of Minnesota Duluth with one of the most rigid defensive cores in the country, and Friday afternoon at AMSOIL Arena, the Badgers continued that stinginess.

The Bulldogs suffered a 3-0 setback to UW, who used two power play goals to push ahead in the first 40 minutes.  Wisconsin, who has allowed just two goals in its first seven games, held UMD to 24 shots on goal while generating 37.

"Good start, thought we had a lot of momentum and then they got that goal right away off the penalty kill," said UMD head coach Maura Crowell. "The momentum shifted and I would have liked to have seen us respond to that situation better.  I like the way we killed the rest of that penalty off in the third, we had our chances, we just wanted to get one, chip away at it.  It felt like at any point we could have scored and gotten momentum, but it didn't work out."

Wisconsin's first power play goal came at 10:36 of the first period in the slot from Makeena Webster, giving the Badgers a 1-0 lead that held through the first 20 minutes of play.

The Badgers added two goals in the second period, with the second goal fluttering up and past Emma Soderberg after Maddi Wheeler got just enough of a bouncing puck on the step of the crease to push UW ahead 2-0 at 7:31.   Wisconsin's third goal and second power play goal of the day was again Webster sitting on the edge of the crease, and the sophomore knocked in her second goal of the game just 24.4 seconds before the second intermission.

UMD had a little over four minutes of a penalty to kill off to start the third, and rallied to kill it off, but unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the momentum changing goal just never found the net Friday.

Soderberg made 34 saves for the Bulldogs, while her UW counterpart Kennedy Blair turned away 24 pucks.  The Badgers improve to 7-0 on the season, and 3-0 in Western Collegiate Hockey Association play.

UMD falls to 2-3-0 overall and in league play, but will look to salvage a split on Sunday.  Game two will get underway at AMSOIL at 1:01 p.m.

"I think the time off in between games is to our advantage," said Crowell.  "We are always trying to get better and it's early in the season.  We will critique, reset and we will be better on Sunday."