The luck of the Irish remained elusive for the No. 5 University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey team Saturday afternoon in the third place game of the Friendship Series in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Bulldogs fell 3-1 to No. 8 Quinnipiac University inside the SSE Arena, leaving UMD winless against two ECAC squads in the tournament.

"Today, you know, I thought we played a really good game, as well as yesterday," said UMD head coach Laura Schuler. "Yesterday's game, I mean, you outshoot a team the way we did, that's hockey sometimes, sometimes the puck just doesn't go in. We definitely had our chances and we did some video and looked at how we could create some more, and I thought our girls implemented some of those adjustments really well in today's game, but obviously goal scoring was hard to come by, despite our chances, and again, sometimes that's hockey."

The Bulldogs didn't start slow Saturday afternoon, and their game-opening goal came off a shorthanded effort by sophomore center Caitlin Kraemer. Kraemer pressured the Bobcats defense, leading to a blind backhand by a QU player that deflected off Kraemer's skate and into the slot. Kraemer attacked it, ripped a shot and then one-timed the rebound to put UMD up 1-0 8:57 into the first period. 

Kraemer with the SHORTY!! pic.twitter.com/Ti1qgUCvXo

— UMD Women's Hockey (@UMDWHockey) January 3, 2026

UMD's lead didn't make it to the first intermission, however, and Quinnipiac equalized at 18:16 of the first to bring the game to 1-1 after 20 minutes.

On the power play early in the second frame, the Bulldogs had thought they had retaken the lead at the 6:24 mark when Dani Burgen backhanded the puck through. But after the Bobcats' coaching staff challenged for offsides, a 10 minutes review ensued – one where the officials literally came back to benches in the middle of it. Eventually, the officials settled on an arguable offsides call against UMD which took away the goal, and with it, some of the Bulldogs second period momentum.

"We're playing good hockey and that's what I think is annoying us is, we're out playing teams, we just outplayed two teams here," said Kraemer. "We outplayed Ohio State in the last game we played them, even though the score didn't reflect that. It's just about scoring and how can we make the puck bounce on our side? And I feel like we kind of came to the conclusion, it's like, okay, what extra work can we do? Can we spend longer in the gym? Can we do extra finishing video and on ice time to help us that puck bounce for us? So I think it was just creating that puck luck and obviously that didn't end up in a favor, and unfortunately, we couldn't get more of that."

It was the Bobcats that would get the final puck luck of the game. After the two sides remained tied at 1-1 into the third period, QU finally broke through again at 6:03 to take a 2-1 lead that would be the only goal the Bobcats would need for the win. The Bobcats added final goal on an empty UMD net at 19:11 to seal the 3-1 final.

Freshman goaltender Sophie Villanueva had 25 saves in just her third collegiate start. Overall, QU edged UMD 28-23 in shots on goal. The Bulldogs mere 23 shots on goal was the second-lowest count of the season, though they outshot Quinnipiac 10-8 in the final frame.

"Away from the rink we had a lot of time together to experience cool things and to bond, create lifelong memories together, so in that sense, it was really cool and a good step in the right direction for our group," said team captain Mary Kate O'Brien. "Hockey-wise, it needs to be a big wake up call and it needs to make us ready, even more ready than we've ever been. It needs to be a chip on our shoulder. We have to look at things in the long term, and now we have to look at what our journey to the national tournament looks like, and we definitely made that a little more difficult in terms of the results. So we have to keep that in the forefront of our mind and we have to keep these games in the forefront of our mind and obviously not dwell on them, but we have to learn from them, and we can't wait anymore. We have huge games coming up at home against Wisconsin, and so that needs to be the next focus."

The 12-8 Bulldogs will step right back into Western Collegiate Hockey Association play next weekend when they will host the No. 1 University of Wisconsin at AMSOIL Arena in an afternoon Friday-Saturday series that gets underway Friday at 3:00 p.m.    

BULLDOG NOTES: UMD was again without Ashley Messier, who missed the tournament due to illness.