Ithaca, NY-DAS ICE hockey team at Cornell University defeated on Saturday, March 15th in Lyah Rink, in the regional finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Minnesota-Duluth 1-0.
A large part of the student sections came directly from the celebrations to St. Patrick's Day in the Linden Avenue. The rowdy amount that grew throughout the game finally reached 3,135 -a Lyah -Eisbahn -Record for women's hockey. The number of visitors to the game exceeded the number of 2,711 sets in the 2010/11 season against Dartmouth.
Goalkeeper Annelies Bergmann received a lot of worship of the Lyah believers for her 28 parades -and again had a practical demonstration why after Cornell's victory against Colgate and the nickname “brick wall” Bergmann received the most outstanding player price of the ECAC tournament.
“[The crowd] really do[s] It's fun playing out there, ”said Bergmann. “I think it also makes it more difficult for our opponents, and we just want to know that they are part of the victory with us.”
The Cornell fans were ready to chirp, and chants of “Gopher rejections” rang the stands throughout the game. The pimple is a reference to the secondary status of Minnesota-Duluth compared to the flagship twin Cities Campus and the team of the University of Minnesota system, the Golden Gopher.
Head coach Doug Derraugh said that he greeted the energy that fans bring to the game, and he had helped the team to search for an exhausting ECAC semi-final and the championship the next day.
“We really needed this to be successful at the ECAC championships,” said Derraugh. “Today you stand against a team that is really physical – they wear you. […]- To have the energy of the crowd behind us, I thought that we exaggerated in these games. “
Cornell is the third seed in the tournament, behind the first seed Wisconsin and the second seed and the defending champion Ohio State.
Wisconsin and Ohio State have won the last five national championships in a row. Wisconsin won 2019, 2021 and 2023 and the state of Ohio in 2022 and 2024. The two universities have also been the finalists of the past two years.
The game remained goalless for the entire first and second period, which developed into a very defensive match – something that Derraugh said that he expected to enter into.
“From the perspective of a trainer, we expected. They are a large, physical, strong, fast, defensive team with a really good goalkeeper. And so we knew that it would probably be a game with a low value, ”said Derraugh. “It would probably be a highly competitive game – it will probably be [a] One-gate [margin] one or the other way. “
In the first period, Minnesota-Duluth and Cornell Power games exchanged against the striker Kaitlin Jockims and the striker of Minnesota-Duluth, Jenna Lawry-Beide. Despite the same goal shots for each team in the first period, both teams ultimately did not score a goal.
In the second period, no team made it to a goal because both defendments could separate the games before they developed into shots. Even in the second period, the referees did not refer to any penalties for the occasional vocal dispute of the Lyna believers.
The two teams ultimately started in the third period, with Minnesota-Duluth Cornell 18-16 exceeding.
For three minutes and 24 seconds in the third period, striker Avi Adam sent an outlet pass to Stuthut Gabbie Rud, who passed the puck to defender Alyssa Regalado. Regalado's shot bounced off a skate and defeated Minnesota-Duluth goalkeeper ève Gascon when she dived over the fold to finally open the goalkeepers and to bring Cornell 1-0.
“Gabbie just fed a great passport for open ice and I was always thrown in, even though I ended up behind the net,” said Regalado. “I looked at the front and saw that the goalkeeper was not quite over the wrinkle yet, and my goal was to simply advance him because I drove a player on the net and was only lucky enough to jump off from her feet. But I think that happens when you throw a few pucks into the net. “
Six minutes and 15 seconds after the beginning of the period, Cornell faced one of the most endangered moments when Minnesota-Duluth defender Tova Henderson missed a shot. Seconds later, Mary Kate O'Brien, Mary Kate O'Brien, followed a fiery rebound and had little recovered from the Cornell goalkeeper Bergmann. But Bergmann was large as chants of “brick wall Bergmann” Lyna Rink flooded for the second time.
The third period continued with a few and far between the shots. 13 minutes and 30 to the period forced Minnesota-Duluth striker Zoey crawled Bergmann to make another outstanding star for Cornell. The Lyna believers reacted again in benefits with chants of “brick wall Bergmann”.
Cornell replied with a chance after the TV timeout. For 15 minutes and 44 seconds in the third period, he directed the puck over the ice, but Gascon saved her shot and covered the puck to enforce an allusion. Regalado forced Gascon to save another pass from striker Katie Chan.
Striker Karel Protaine made a punishment for the stumbling with just two minutes and 26 seconds, and Cornell made the penalty murder. With just more than a minute in the game and Minnesota-Duluth in the power play, Gascon went to the bench for the additional skater, which Minnesota-Duluth gives a 6-against-4 advantage.
Bergmann, however, stood high in the clutch against a flood of shots, and Cornell killed the penalty 26 seconds left the uniform strength for Minnesota duluth. But despite a chaotic flood, the Bulldogs could not do this in the last second and an additional skater on the ice. In the last two minutes of the game on the way to a hard -earned shutout, Bergmann finally saved five goals.
“I somehow darkened,” said Bergmann. “I just play as easy as possible and I know that my team will have my back, no matter what happens. That was a big deal all year round. No matter what would happen, they would be there and hopefully I would be there too – it was fun. “
The Lyna believers thundered with chants of “brick wall Bergmann” one last time. When the two teams competed for hand shakes after the last buzzer, cheering fans hit the glass so hard that it was visibly shook.
Cornell will climb into the NCAA Frozen Four semfinals in the Ridder Arena in Minneapolis on Friday, March 21st. You will compete against the state of Ohio, the St. Lawrence defeated 6-1 to win a separate regional finale. The game can be streamed online at ESPN+ at 5:00 p.m. East.
