UMD Athletics

A depleted roster didn't stop the No. 12/13 University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey team from taking the No. 2 University of Minnesota into late overtime Friday night at AMSOIL Arena. The Bulldogs gave the Gophers all they could handle before Minnesota finally squeaked out a 3-2 Western Collegiate Hockey Association win.

"I'm really proud of how our team competed tonight," said UMD head coach Laura Schuler. "Despite being down numbers, I thought we showed the depth of our group and the ability to step up when called upon. There are a lot of positives to build on. It was great to see Laini (Gnetz) and Renée (Lapointe) score their first collegiate goals, and Marilou (Grenier) came up with some big saves for us. Although the overtime result wasn't what we wanted, I really liked a lot of what we brought to the game tonight."

UMD entered the game down five players due to national team duties, including leading scorer Caitlin Kraemer and the NCAA's leading goaltender Eve Gascon, who are both with team Canada. Senior defenseman Ida Karlsson, as well as Team Finland's Paulina Salonen and Tuilli Tallinen were also absent from AMSOIL, currently in Europe with their respective teams.

Minnesota, able to roll four lines of forwards and three lines of defenseman despite also being down three players, struck twice in the opening period of play and took a 2-0 advantage into the first intermission, but it was the Bulldogs who responded in the second frame.

Laini Gnetz collared an errant Gopher pass in the slot, shot it off Rae Mayer on the doorstep and buried her own rebound to net her first goal at UMD 4:04 into the period. The goal also doubled as the Bulldogs first power play score of the season, and it pulled the scrappy home team within a single goal.

Minnesota challenged a save by rookie goaltender Marilou Grenier at 10:02 of the second, which was eventually ruled to have gone entirely over the goal line. But an immediate counter challenge from the UMD bench for goaltender interference got the call reversed, and after 40 minutes of action at AMSOIL, the Gophers still led the Bulldogs by just a single goal at 2-1.

Short bench and all, UMD pushed Minnesota to the brink, and after outshooting the Gophers 14-13 in the third frame, finally broke through to knot the game at 2-2 with 34 seconds left in regulation with the extra skater.. Rookie defenseman Renee Lapointe possibly became the youngest Bulldog player ever to score a goal when she unloaded from the slot a pass from Josie St. Martin for the first goal of her collegiate career, and more importantly, the game's equalizer.

It looked like the game was headed for a WCHA shootout after the two sides had battled in the 3-on-3 overtime, but with 36 seconds remaining, the Gophers finally beat Grenier on a goal from Ava Lindsay.

Grenier was outstanding between the pipes for UMD with a career-best effort of 39 saves for UMD. Her counterpart in net for Minnesota, Hannah Clark, finished with 25 stops and the Gophers outshot the Bulldogs 42-27 in the game.

The Bulldogs (6-3-0, 3-2-0) and Gophers (8-1-0, 4-1-0) will do it all over again on Saturday at AMSOIL. The puck is set to drop at 3:00 p.m.