The Ohio State women’s ice hockey team continues to persevere despite some tough losses.
The team was defeated in both of its games this weekend against top ranked Minnesota-Duluth, losing by final scores of 5-0 and 3-0.
After Saturday night’s game, OSU women’s hockey coach Jackie Barto said the team had played well despite the loss.
“Our team had a lot of heart and desire and showed that this evening. We played aggressive,” Barto said.
She said the team displayed good energy, work ethic and tenacity.
Senior captain Emily Hudak said the team had played well.
“After the first period we could have easily packed it up and said we were done with the game, but we didn’t. We kept digging and didn’t let them score any goals for the last two periods,” Hudak said.
The team will spend this week preparing for the coming weekend’s games against No. 8 Providence and Connecticut. The coming games are important for the Buckeyes, who began the season 2-0, but have not won a game since. The Buckeyes (2-7-1) have tried not to let the losses affect the team morale.
“It’s kind of a letdown, but the positive thing is we’re in all of these games, we’re not getting blown out. We are competing with these teams, it’s just a matter of doing a little bit extra to get the pucks in the net,” Hudak said.
Barto said the team has to look at the quality of the competition.
“We need to keep in mind that we’ve had six games against teams ranked in the top seven in the country. I think we’re getting better through these games,” Barto said.
Even though the Buckeyes have not let the losses bring down the team spirit, they realize how important it is to win next weekend.
“We need to get some wins on our record. We’re going into some tough weekends. We have Christmas break in a month, and it’d be nice to go into that at .500,” said junior assistant captain Jeanne Chapple.
The team is aware of what it must do in order to have success next weekend. Barto said her team needs to work on keeping its intensity high this week. She said the team had played with high intensity this past weekend and needs to carry that through to next weekend’s games.
“We’ve got to work on power play. If we can get that down, we should be all right,” Chapple said.
During Saturday night’s games, the Buckeyes had 10 power play opportunities, yet failed to score on any of them. A power play occurs when the opposing team has a player in the penalty box for breaking a rule, giving the opposing team a greater number of players on the ice.
The team is focused on playing well the rest of the season.
“One of our biggest goals right now is to just improve every day when we go on the ice, whether it’s a practice or a game. I’d also say our goal is to make it to the Final Five, our league championship in North Dakota,” Barto said.
