University of Minnesota Athletics
University of Minnesota
32-5-3
Mercyhurst
31-5-0
Comeback Falls Short as the Gophers Lose, 5-4
3/21/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Hockey
Despite a rally at the end of the game and being down 5-1, the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team fell, 5-4 to Mercyhurst College, tonight at the Agganis Arena in Boston. The Golden Gophers finish the season with a 32-5-3 overall record and stopped just short of their goal to reach the NCAA Championship game.
Minnesota scored at 5:29 in the first and allowed five straight goals before scoring three straight in the third period at 11:13, 15:24 and 18:43 in the third, but the comeback fell just short.
The Frozen Four marked the sixth time the Golden Gopher program made it to the big dance and the first under head coach Brad Frost. Minnesota’s previous appearances game in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and now in 2009.
Gigi Marvin got the Gophers on the board when she scored her 29th goal of the season at 5:29 in the first. Minnesota started the play when Rachael Drazan found Gigi Marvon just after center and placed it top-shelf past Hillary Pattenden. However, MC roared back and scored three unanswered goals to put the game at 3-1 after the first period.
The Lakers’ first goal came on a five-on-three attempt at 8:38 in the first period when Valerie Chouinard put the puck short-side past Gopher goalie Alyssa Grogan. Minnesota couldn’t stay out of the box as the Lakers scored their second power-play goal of the period at 15:47 in the first with the goal coming from Bailey Bram. Meghan Agosta added the final blow of the period when she scored her 40th goal of the season at 18:46. Minnesota and MC each had 10 shots on goal during the period, but the Lakers capitalized on three of their attempts.
With the three goals allowed, it knocked out Gopher starting goalie Alyssa Grogan as she was replaced with Jenny Lura. Meghan Corbett scored on a tip-in at 3:40 in the second period. Agosta scored her second goal of the game at 19:56 to add another blow to Minnesota’s deficit as she banged in a rebound attempt for her 41st goal of the year.
Minnesota attempted a comeback scoring three goals for the 5-4 final. Jen Schoullis scored her 19th goal of the season at 11:13 in the third on a power-play attempt. Marvin brought the puck deep into the zone and spun around and found Schoullis crashing the net through the slot. She banged home the puck for her 19th goal of the season. Marvin scored her second goal of the game at 15:24 in the third. With 2:12 remaining in the game, the Gophers pulled Lura to add the extra attacker. Monique Lamoureux scored her 39th goal of the season at 18:43, while Drazan and Marvin added the assists. In the final minute of the game, the Gophers had their chances to tie up the game, but couldn’t find the back of the net.
Minnesota attempted 13 shots in the second and 14 in the third, while allowing only seven shots in the second and five in the third for 22 shots. In all, Minnesota rattled off 37 shots on goal.
HEAD COACH BRAD FROST
Opening Comments
Well obviously we’re extremely disappointed. We felt like we were playing extremely well coming in and were hoping for a better result. It may look like I’m 22, but I’ve been coaching for 13 years now and I can’t say I’m any more proud of a team than this one that competed tonight. Unfortunately in the game of hockey and every other athletic event, there has to be a loser and tonight we were on the wrong end of it. There’s no question that we dug a pretty big hole that was tough to get out of and ultimately we never did get out of it. But the last 40 minutes, I thought we played as well as we played all year. It’s tough when you’re down, 3-1, but the kids continued to battle and never gave up. I thought we had some great chances in the second period and all of a sudden it’s 5-1 instead of 3-3 going into the third. It just speaks to the character of our players and our staff and our team that we were down, 5-1, and didn’t give up. It’s really easy I think to just fold the tent and pack it up and go home and hop on the plane back to Minneapolis, but they didn’t.
They never lost heart and to me that speaks more to them as people and what they’re all about as people and hockey players. It’s going to be a great life lesson here for them after they’re done playing hockey.
What did you say to team after second period?
We were creating some great chances by getting pucks and bodies to the net. We noticed that their gap was not real strong and so I talked to them about cutting to the net and getting some shots. I thought we did a better job of that in the third. The other thing we talked about was never losing heart. We have that in our locker room: Never Lose Heart Gophers. We knew there may come a time where we’d really have to fight through, and as a group we locked arms and said, “...arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, we’re together in this thing and we’re not quitting”, and the kids believed it and they battled.
On the goalie change
Alyssa’s (Grogan) had food poisoning the last two days and hasn’t been eating. Obviously we didn’t want to tell anybody. She got an iv today and she felt like she could go and we had confidence in her. Maybe it was a coaching mistake on my part, but I believed in her and still do. But after the first she couldn’t go, she didn’t have the energy. We felt confident with Jenny (Lura) in there, but we wanted to give Alyssa the opportunity to start the game.
SENIOR DEFENSEMAN MELANIE GAGNON
Did the five-on-three penalty kill lead to a loss of momentum?
We came out a little flat. We scored our first goal and we were pumped, and then I think we laid back. We knew it was going to bite us eventually this year. We said it was Gopher hockey for 60 minutes and unfortunately we took 20 off today and it showed. There was a deficit and we couldn’t climb out of it.
On the team’s attitude down 5-1, coming out on ice for third
Believe it or not, we were really upbeat. Unfortunately we came in 5-1, but we thought we were playing Minnesota hockey in the second. They got some lucky goals; one got batted out of the air, nice goal on her part. We were really upbeat, we knew we weren’t down. Last weekend we scored four goals against [Boston College] in 10 minutes, so we had 20 minutes to work with. I think it showed. We never gave up; we knew we had it in us. We were one goal away from sending it to OT and extending out season.
