Ohio State
St. Cloud State
Buckeyes Blank St. Cloud State, 2-0 – Ohio State Buckeyes
1/6/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Ice Hockey
Jan. 6, 2012
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Senior forward Natalie Spooner scored a pair of goals to lead the Ohio State women’s hockey team to a 2-0 win over St. Cloud State at the National Hockey Center in St. Cloud, Minn., Friday. The win was the 10th of the season for the Buckeyes as the team improved to 10-7-4 overall and 7-7-1-1 in WCHA play.
With the two goals, Spooner tied Jeni Creary’s (2002-05) Ohio State record of 86 career goal and also moved her career points total to 138 for fourth-best in the program’s history. Her multiple-goal performance is the third of the season and the seventh multiple-point game of the year.
Redshirt sophomore Chelsea Knapp earned the shutout, tallying 25 saves in the win to improve to 3-2-3 on the season. The shutout victory is the second of her career. SCSU’s Julie Friend finished with 23 saves and dropped to 2-5-0.
The teams concluded the first stanza in a scoreless tie as both fired five shots on goal. Spooner broke the tie halfway through the second period, scoring an even-strength goal at 9:47. The Scarborough, Ontario, product was assisted by sophomore Ally Tarr.
Spooner’s second goal came in the final minute of the second period to send the Buckeyes into the last intermission with a 2-0 advantage. The assistant captain tallied her 17th goal of the season at 19:19 with classmates Kelly Wild and Brittany Carlson each earning an assist on the score.
SCSU had a slight 10-9 advantage in shots during the third period, but Knapp and the rest of the Buckeyes held off the Husky offensive strike to take the shutout.
Ohio State and SCSU conclude the two-game WCHA series Saturday with a 3 p.m. ET game at the National Hockey Center.
