Abigail Boreen's hat trick carries Gophers women's hockey past St. Cloud State

After falling behind by two goals in the opening period, the No. 1 Gophers women's hockey team rallied to edge St. Cloud State 5-3 on Friday afternoon in the Granite City in the first game of the home-and-home series.

Abigail Boreen's second goal of the game, at 4 minutes, 16 seconds of the third period, broke a 2-all tie. And, about five minutes later, she completed her hat trick on a power-play goal, which proved to be the winner. That gives her 20 goals, putting her among the Division I goal-scoring leaders.

"I'm really proud of our team today," Gophers coach Brad Frost said. "We got down 2-0 in the first period, but really dominated play. They really trusted the process, stayed with it, and dug deep.

" A huge goal with 10 seconds left in the second period gave us an opportunity to pull away in the third. All in all, a really big three points and a win. Our team faced some adversity here today and found a way to get through it."

The Huskies, who have lost 20 straight games to the Gophers, got goals in the first period from Emma Gentry at 3:30 and Nicole Ness at 17:51.

Minnesota (23-7-1, 18-6-1 WCHA) countered with two goals in the second. Boreen scored at 14:21 and Catie Skaja wih just 10 seconds left in the period.

Taylor Heise, who had assists on all of the Gophers' first four goals, scored her 23rd of the season with a little under two minutes to play to make it 5-2. The senior forward from Lake City, Minn., went into this weekend first in the nation in goals (22) and third in assists (29) and first in points (51), Now, at least right after this five-point game, she is first in goals (23), assists (33) and points (56). She is seven points ahead of Gabbie Hughes of Minnesota Duluth for the points lead.

St. Cloud State (9-18-2, 4-17-2) got the game's last goal. Olivia Cvar scored on a power-play with 1:07 left.

Lauren Bench made 14 saves for the win; Huskies goalie Emma Polusny kept her team close with 56 saves.