Gophers women sweep St. Cloud State in hockey as Savannah Norcross scores winner

The Gophers have the No. 1-ranked team in women's hockey. And it went into Saturday's game with 20 consecutive wins against St. Cloud State.

Make that 21 now. But easy, it was not, even though the Huskies are struggling to win WCHA games this season.

Savannah Norcross' eighth goal of the season, with 4 minutes, 35 seconds left in the second period, was the game-winner as Minnesota beat St. Cloud State 5-1, pulling away late at Ridder Arena to sweep the home-and-home series.

She tipped in a shot from the point by fifth-year defenseman Olivia Knowles.

"A big three points here tonight," Gophers coach Brad Frost said. "Our team continued to get better as the game wore on and we were able to pull away at the end. We had some good goaltending and timely goals.

"All in all, a really good weekend for us and a big six points. We're going to enjoy this and get ready for St. Thomas next week."

The Gophers (24-7-1, 19-6-1 WCHA) won the opener 5-3 after trailing 2-0 after the first period and the game being tied 2-2 after the second.

Catie Skaja gave Minnesota a 1-0 lead in the rematch, scoring unassited at 3:05 of the opening period. Olivia Cvar of the Huskies (9-19-2, 4-18-2) tied it on a power-play goal at 8:20.

And it stayed knotted for just over 27 minutes as goalies Mikayla Pahl of the Gophers and Sanni Ahola of the Huskies imitated stone walls.

Then Norcross, a senior forward who transferred from Boston College this season, got her second game-winner.

And, in the third, Minnesota scored three more times. Knowles got her second goal of the season seven minutes in. And in the final 2:25, Skaja and Ella Huber both had shorthanded goals. Skaja's second goal of the game was an empty-netter.

Pahl finished with 19 saves, Ahola with 42.

The win kept the Gophers in first place in the WCHA with a .795 points percentage (62 points out of a possible 78) — used this season only because of unbalanced schedules — and atop the PairWise rankings, which mimic how the NCAA fills outs its national tournament field and seeds teams.

Minnesota has only two regular-season games left against St. Thomas, a first-year Division I team.