Women’s College Hockey National Championship 2023 Preview
In an eventful season where the Western Collegiate Hockey Association dominated the majority of the women’s college hockey landscape, two WCHA teams will meet in the National Championship when No.1 Ohio State faces unranked Wisconsin at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
As you may be able to guess based on the difference in seeding, these programs faced very different paths in order to reach this point.
The Badgers started their tournament run in a first round matchup against the Long Island University Sharks.
This ended up being a completely dominant showing for Wisconsin as they eliminated LIU with a lopsided 9-1 victory in which eight different Badgers recorded goals.
They then advanced to face No. 3 Colgate, managing to pull off a big 4-2 upset over the Raiders and giving the country a glimpse of what was to come for the rest of this underdog run.
Next up on deck was the conference rival Minnesota Golden Gophers.
While the maroon and gold held the second seed in the tournament, they had yet to beat the Badgers in four games this season.
Sure enough, this trend continued as Wisconsin advanced once again thanks to an overtime game-winning goal from freshman All-American defenseman Caroline Harvey after an exciting back-and-forth effort in a third period that consisted of three goals.
On the other end of the bracket, as the top seed, Ohio State was awarded a first-round bye.
After waiting on the result of the Penn State vs. Quinnipiac matchup, the Bobcats advanced only to drop their contest against the Buckeyes by a score of 5-2.
Ohio State then cruised past No. 5 Northeastern in a 3-0 shutout in the semifinals, getting contributions from three separate goal scorers in freshman forward Sloane Matthews, junior forward Makenna Webster and senior defenseman Hadley Hartmetz.
In four games this season, the Buckeyes are 3-1 against Wisconsin with the one loss coming in a 6-5 shootout that ended in sudden death overtime.
Aside from that game, the Badgers have struggled to put the puck in the net against Ohio State, only scoring two goals combined in the other three games and even getting shutout in one.
However, Wisconsin is third in the country in goals scored with 165 on the season and their offense has been prolific up to this point in the tournament, potentially riding momentum into this championship game.
Only problem is that the team sitting right above them in goals scored, with an advantage of one, just so happens to be the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Luckily for Wisconsin, the Badgers have allowed the fourth least amount of goals in the country with 65, only conceding 1.67 per game.
Both of these teams are getting hot at just the right time and when factoring in the fact that they are division rivals with a history of heated battles, this championship game should prove to be a thrilling ride til the very end.
Jakob Schnur is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email, jks6463@psu.edu.
