2/26/2010 - WOMEN'S ICE HOCKEY Beavers fall 3-0 in first of three in St. Cloud

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ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Looking to snap a 13-postseason-game losing streak the No. 6 seed Bemidji State University women’s hockey team took on the No. 3 seed St. Cloud State in the first of a best-of-three game series Friday night at the National Hockey Center. Unfortunately, the Beavers couldn’t find the back of the net and loss for a second straight game without scoring. The Huskies took the first game of the series with a score of 3-0.

“It was a battle of special teams, [St. Cloud State’s] power play score twice and ours failed to score,” said head coach Steve Sertich. “I thought they took the game away from us about half-way through and we never recovered.”

The Beavers got their star goalie, Zuzana Tomcikova (So., Bratislava, Slovakia), back from the Winter Olympic Games. She took a leave of absence from competition to represent her home country of Slovakia in Vancouver. Tomcikova made 25 saves in the game, good for a .926 save percentage.

In the first period the two sides were evenly matched as neither team could get on the scoreboard. Both defenses played a tight first period as there the shots on goal were only 5-to-3 in favor of St. Cloud State.

Special teams play was the story of the second period as there were a total of four power-play opportunities between the two teams. The Husky power play out-gunned the BSU penalty kill netting two man-advantage goals in the period to head into the second intermission with a two-goal lead.

Riding out their momentum, the Huskies took control of the game in the third period out-shooting the Beavers 12-4. Bemidji State went on the power play late in the third and Tomcikova went to the bench to give BSU a six-on-four advantage. However, the Huskies cleared the puck out of their zone and got it on net scoring the empty netter to secure the win.

“We haven’t scored a goal in two games and we needed to try to find a way. With the six-on-four I though we had a chance to cut the lead in half, and you never know what could happen after something like that,” Sertich commented on about the decision to pull the goalie for the extra skater.

With the loss Bemidji State needs to win back-to-back the next two nights in order to advance on to the WCHA Final Faceoff tournament, which is held next weekend in Minneapolis. Bemidji State remains winless in the post season with an overall record of 0-14 in the playoffs. BSU is also winless this season when the opponent scores first, marking a 0-13-4 record when failing to get on the board first.

St. Cloud State scored on two-of-three power-play opportunities it had in the game. Husky goalie Ashley Nixon had a fairly quiet night in net turning away 14 shots for the shutout.

Game two of the series will be held tomorrow night back at the National Hockey Center in St. Cloud with the same game time of 7:07 p.m.



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