The No. 6 University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey team arguably just ran out of time Saturday night, falling to the No. 3 University of Minnesota 4-3 at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn. in the final regular season Western Collegiate Hockey Association action between the two sides.

"I'd like to see us all show up together on the same day, you know, and we have everybody, because I think we're a really good team, but we have to be able to piece it together if we want to beat teams like that," said UMD head coach Maura Crowell. "I have to give credit to Minnesota, I thought they played really, really well both games here this weekend, and you know we'll probably see them again somewhere down the line, and we'll be ready for it. I think we're a really good team, too, but we just need to have everybody going in order to get the win."

The Bulldogs, who stumbled into a two goal deficit after the Gophers scored a power play at 12:02 of the first and at the 1:34 mark of the second, three times pulled within a single goal over the final two periods of play. The first time, sophomore forward Gabby Krause redirected a Maggie Flaherty shot from the point first tipped by Naomi Rogge at 9:37 of the second frame on the power play to draw UMD back within a single goal.  Just under five minutes later, Minnesota retook a two goal lead on Peyton Hemp's 13th goal of the season, and UMD headed into the second intermission down 3-1 in the contest.

Senior Mannon McMahon cut that Gopher lead back down to one at 3:29 of the third period. Ashton Bell skated behind the Minnesota net and fed McMahon outside the post, and McMahon managed to beat Minnesota goaltender Skylar Vetter wide for her eighth tally of the season. But the Gophers responded again just over six minutes later, and midway through the third stanza, UMD was again down two tallies and tralied 4-2.

The Bulldogs made one final push, and pulled goaltender Emma Soderberg to coincide with a power play and a 6-on-4 that produced fifth year senior Taylor Anderson's ninth goal of the season. Hanna Baskin's shot on goal bounced back off the boards to Anderson, who forced it between the pipe and Vetter to make it a 4-3 game with 2:30 left in regulation.

UMD put four more pucks on net in a flurry of action to finish out the game, but the comeback fell short for the Bulldogs, who dropped their second game for the first time since the beginning of November.

Soderberg made 20 saves on an afternoon that UMD outshot Minnesota in 27-24 and 11-9 in the final frame. UMD went 2-of-6 with an extra skater, while the Gophers went 1-of-4. Vetter finished with 24 saves for Minnesota, which extended its current win streak to 12 games and improved to 22-3-2 overall and 19-2-2 in league play.

The Bulldogs (19-8-1, 13-8-1), who surrendered more than three goals for just the third time this season, will hit the road next weekend and travel to Minnesota State University, Mankato for a WCHA series on Feb. 3-4. The Friday-Saturday series gets underway at 3:00 p.m. Friday before concluding at 2:00 p.m. Saturday.

BULLDOG NOTES: With assists Saturday, defensemen Ashton Bell and Maggie Flaherty both move up the career ladder … Bell, who already sits seventh all-time in blueliner scoring with 72 points (24g, 48a), moves into a tie with Jessica Wong for 10th in career assists by a defenseman … Flaherty, who now ranks 10th for scoring all-time, is solidly in sixth all-time for blueliner assists with 53 … Naomi Rogge is now tied for second for the most games played in a career at UMD with 157 … Rogge ties defenseman Jaime Rasmussen, who ran up 157 games played between 2006-10.