Gophers Women's Hockey sweeps Bemidji with hard-fought Saturday game

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (KMSP) - Friday night against Bemidji State, the Gophers Women’s Hockey Team cruised to a 6-3 win, but in Saturday’s contest, Minnesota had to fight for every inch.

"It was just a grind and very rarely are games like this pretty," said Brad Frost, Head Coach.

The turning point came in the third period just after killing off a penalty in a 1-1 game, the Gophers got their first power play of the night and Grace Zumwinkle tallied what would be the game winning goal.

Minnesota killed off five power play opportunities for Bemidji and the Gophers feel that was the difference in the game.

"Our penalty kill, I think, has been real good here over the last couple weeks. It was something we were struggling with early and players have just dug in and found a way to kill those off,” Frost said.

"For PK it's a lot of things, you know, it's everyone talking from me all the way up to the forwards and it's everyone blocking shots. It's me stopping pucks if I need to, playing them out or just talking to people," said Gopher Goaltender Alex Gulstene.

It was a hard fought victory for Minnesota and the Gophers seemed happy to prove that they can get the job done even when taking their opponents best shot.

"I would classify wins as either pure, clear wins, or like hard fought ones and I think this obviously falls into that category and I think that just goes on to prove like we can come back from adversity and not just like a team that is like all pure goal scoring but it's also hard working and grit that go along with it,” said Zumwinkle.

With the win, the Gophers improve their record to 9-2-1 overall and they'll get a much needed break as they have next weekend off but when they return they'll have a home and home series with St. Cloud St. beginning Nov. 17 at Ridder Arena.