Second-ranked Wisconsin extends winning streak to 11, completes sweep of No. 10 St. Cloud State

An early deficit once again did not deter the Wisconsin women’s hockey team.

The second-ranked Badgers came behind for the third straight game, scoring a 5-2 victory over No. 10 St. Cloud State Sunday in front of a sellout crowd of 2,273 at La Bahn Arena. The victory was UW’s 11^th straight.

Freshman Laney Potter recorded her first multi-goal game by scoring twice. Senior Casey O’Brien (three assists) and junior Lacey Eden (one goal, two assists) had three-point games. Sophomore Caroline Harvey scored for the second straight game and also recorded an assist.

The victory gave Wisconsin (24-4, 17-4 WCHA) a season sweep of the Huskies (15-12-1, 10-10-1).

BOX SCORE:No. 2 Wisconsin 5, No. 10 St. Cloud State 2

“They’re really big thing is physicality,” Potter said. “Our thing is skill, we just had to outwork them with skill and I think we did that tonight.”

On Saturday, St. Cloud pushed Wisconsin to overtime before falling, 2-1. Sunday the Huskies got on the scoreboard first at the 7-minute 50-second mark.

Freshman Kelly Gorbatenko responded 2½ minutes later for UW with her sixth goal of the season and at the 7:51 mark of the second period Harvey scored on a power play to record a goal for the second straight day.

Potter’s back-to-back scores came at the 6:14 and 9:28 marks of the third period to push the Badgers lead to 4-1.  Eden’s goal capped the scoring and gave her a four-point weekend for the second straight week.

The wins set up Wisconsin for its final road trip of the regular season. It plays at Bemidji State on Friday and Saturday and then closes the regular season vs. No. 5 Minnesota on Feb. 16-17 and vs. top-ranked Ohio State on Feb. 23-24.

“We’re definitely building on every game,” Eden said. “We’ve had a couple really tough battles too so that shows our perseverance. It builds confidence going into these last few series. We’re going to be ready to take on that challenge.”