Minnesota will head to Clarkson for a NCAA Quarterfinal on Saturday
The Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s hockey team officially found out their NCAA Tournament path on Sunday when the brackets were revealed. As expected the Gophers are the #5 overall NCAA seed and will head to #4 seed Clarkson on Saturday for a NCAA Quarterfinal game. The game will face-off at 2PM and streaming info is yet to be released, but it will likely stream on ESPN+.
Minnesota lost on Friday 4-3 in overtime to the Wisconsin Badgers in the WCHA Semifinal. Minnesota had a 3-2 lead late until the Badgers ted the game with 8.8 seconds left when Casey O’Brien scored a goal from behind the Gopher goal by bouncing the puck off Minnesota goalie Skyler Vetter’s helmet and into the net. The Badgers would win in overtime on a goal by Lacy Eden. Wisconsin would go on to defeat Ohio State 6-3 on Saturday to claim the WCHA Tournament Championship.
Clarkson enters the NCAA Tournament on a loss as well to Colgate in the ECAC Championship Game. Colgate defeated the Green Knights, but only scored one goal on Clarkson goalie Michelle Pasiechnyk with the other two coming late on empty net goals.
The Gophers will have a tough task ahead as Pasiechnyk is one of the best goaltenders in the nation and is allowing just 1.31 goals per game this season.
The winner of the Minnesota/ Clarkson semifinal will likely see #1 overall seed Ohio State in the Frozen Four. Despite the loss in the WCHA Championship Game the Buckeyes still received the #1 overall seed and will play the winner of a opening round game between Minnesota-Duluth and UConn in a quarterfinal on Saturday.
The lower portion of the bracket consists of #2 seed Wisconsin playing the winner of St. Lawrence and Penn State in quarterfinal, and #3 seed Colgate hosting the winner of Stonehill and Cornell.
The 2024 Frozen Four will take place March 22 and 24th in Durham, New Hampshire. The full NCAA Tournament bracket is below. We will have a full preview of the Gopher Quarterfinal later this week here at TDG.
