The Ohio State women’s hockey team celebrated the final home games for five seniors on Saturday. Unfortunately, it was the defending national champions from Minnesota Duluth who ended up celebrating at the end of the weekend.
The Buckeyes dropped both games to the sixth ranked Bulldogs by scores of 5-2 and 5-1. OSU has now lost 8 straight home games and will have to wait until October to win their first home game of 2011.
It should be pointed out that all 8 games were lost to a top ten team and OSU is 4-0 on the road in 2011.
OSU still has at least two weeks left in their season.
This weekend they travel to Bemidji (2:00pm Fri/Sat) in a matchup mostly for positive momentum going into the playoffs. The Buckeyes have all but clinched the six seed in the tournament, while the Beavers are a lock for the five seed.
Right now the odds are Ohio State will travel to Duluth for a three game series with the Bulldogs in the first round of the WCHA playoffs, Feb. 25-27. It is also possible the Bucks would have to go to Minnesota or North Dakota.
Any of those three teams would be a tough match for Ohio State, although this team has shown the potential to pull upsets and has a win at Duluth and shootout win in Grand Forks this season.
The Buckeyes best shot to pull a first round playoff upset for the second year would come with a series against the Fighting Sioux.
OSU matched up best against the Sioux this year with every game decided by one goal, and three of the four going into overtime.
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Before Saturday’s game OSU honored its five seniors playing their last home game. Defensemen Shannon Reilly and Teal Bishop will leave a void on the blue line, while up front the Buckeyes lose Jenna Kilpatrick, Sandy Nelson, and captain Christina Mancuso.
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Amanda Boskovich, Brittany Carlson, and Kelly Wild were named WCHA Scholar-Athletes. These three Buckeyes have maintained at least a cumulative 3.5 GPA or at least a 3.5 GPA over the last year.
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