MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (Ridder Arena) - Minnesota’s Whitney Graft recorded three points with two goal and an assist to lead No. 8 Minnesota to a 5-3 victory over Bemidji State at Ridder Arena this afternoon. Graft recorded two goals in the first period and picked up an assist on Minnesota’s fifth goal to help the Golden Gophers salvage a split in the weekend series.

Minnesota started the scoring just 1:11 into the first period when Whitney Graft picked up her sixth goal of the season for Minnesota with help from Andrea Nichols. Graft’s goal gave Minnesota it’s first lead of the weekend. Bemidji State tied the contest up just over five minutes later when Tara Hiscock (Bemidji, Minn.) netted her sixth goal of the season at 6:24 of the first period. Jaime LeDuc (International Falls, Minn.) and Mandy Bambrough picked up the helpers on Hiscock’s game tying goal.

Bemidji State’s Ashley Leopold (Afton, Minn.) picked up a checking penalty at 17:11 of the period to give Minnesota a power-play opportunity. The Golden Gophers would take advantage of the man-advantage just :30 seconds into the power-play when Graft would net her second goal of the period to give Minnesota a 2-1 advantage. Melanie Gagnon and Dagney Willey picked up the assists on the power-play goal.

Minnesota’s Kelli Blankenship took a checking penalty at 18:05 of the first to give the Beavers it’s own power-play opportunity. It took the Beavers just :05 seconds of the man-advantage to even the score back up at two goals apiece. Hiscock recorded her second goal of the period with help from Kelly Hart to help the Beavers skate into the first intermission at a 2-2 deadlock with Minnesota.

Minnesota scored two unanswered goals in the second period to push it’s lead to 4-2. Andrea Nichols picked up Minnesota’s first goal of the second period at 11:16 of the period to give the Golden Gophers a 3-2 lead. Nichols unassisted goal was her 13th of the season. Gigi Marvin recorded her 17th goal of the season at 14:41 with help from Erika McKenzie and Jenelle Philipczyk to push the Golden Gopher lead to 4-2 heading into the second intermission.

The third period of play saw Bemidji State’s Kate Robinson (Shanty Bay, Ontario) take a hooking penalty at 17:01 of the final frame to give Minnesota it’s fifth power-play opportunity of the game. Bemidji State was able to create it’s own offense off the penalty kill. Kelly Hart (Ajax, Ontario) brought the Beavers within a one goal deficit at 4-3 when she took a pass from Tara Hiscock and was able to beat Minnesota goaltender Kim Hanlon for her seventh goal of the season. This was Hart’s first short handed goal of her career and it was the Beavers second short handed goal of the season. With the goal Hart reached 100 points for her career at Bemidji State. Hart joins Amber Fryklund as the only two players in Bemidji State’s eight year Division I era to reach 100 points in a career.

Minnesota sealed the victory when Jenelle Philipczyk scored a power-play goal at 18:46 of the third period to push the Golden Gopher lead back to two goals. Philipczyk’s goal was her seventh goal of the season. Graft and Nichols picked up the helpers on the power-play goal.

Minnesota out-shot the Beavers 43-to-25 in the game, 14-to-4 in the first period, 15-to-7 in the second period and 14-to-14 in the final frame.

Bemidji State and Minnesota combined 12 minor penalties. Bemidji State took eight penalties for 16 minutes while Minnesota took just four penalties for eight minutes. Bemidji State went 1-for-2 on the power-play, with Minnesota going 2-for-6 on the man-advantage.

Emily Brookshaw (Webster, Wis.) picked up the loss for the Beavers stopping 38 of 43 shots faced in 60:00 minutes of work, dropping her record to 10-16-5 on the season.

Kim Hanlon picked up the win for Minnesota stopping 22 of 25 shots faced in 60:00 minutes of work, improving her record to 8-4-0 on the season .

With the loss Bemidji State falls to 2-29-3 all-time versus the Golden Gophers and 2-12-2 all-time at Ridder Arena.

Bemidji State (11-16-5 / 9-13-4 WCHA) will travel to Madison, Wis. next weekend to take on the No. 2 team in the Nation in the Wisconsin Badgers (26-1-4 / 20-1-4 WCHA) in it’s final weekend series of the season. Both games are slated to start at 2:07 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

--beavers--