Grace Zumwinkle's goal with 4:02 left gives No. 2 Gophers women win over St. Cloud State

Sanni Ahola was good. Very good, in fact.

The No. 2 Gophers kept firing shots at the St. Cloud State goalie but she kept stopping all but one of them. Until Grace Zumwinkle, one of the team leaders, finally found an opening with 4 minutes, 2 seconds left in the third period.

Zumwinkle's team-high seventh goal of the season — and 91st of fifth-year senior forward's career — was the game-winner as the Gophers edged the Huskies 2-1 at Ridder Arena in a WCHA women's hockey game before an announced crowd of 1,553.

Zumwinkle scored on a rebound from the edge of the goalie crease by the right post. Emily Oden took the first shot.

Ahola, a junior from Helsinki, Finland, finished with 43 saves, 18 in the third period. Zumwinkle had six shots on net herself, only teammate Taylor Heise had more, with eight.

"It was a grind," Gophers coach Brad Frost said. "Proud of our team and how we gutted it out.

"St. Cloud played extremely well and made it very tough to score and get to the net and did a great job. Proud of out team and their resilience, especially there in the third period and sticking with it. And we were able to get one late."

St. Cloud State, which is 3-3-102 all-time against Minnesota, had lost to the Gophers 4-2 the day before on its home ice.

Unlike in the first game when Minnesota (6-0, 6-0 WCHA) took a 4-0 lead in the opening period, the Huskies (2-6, 0-6) struck first. And early. Emma Gentry beat sophomore goalie Sklar Vetter (20 saves) at 54 seconds on a rebound.

The Gophers, who trailed in a game for the first time this season, tied it on freshman forward Madison Kaiser's goal about 11 minutes later. And it stayed 1-1 for the next 44 minutes despite a 2-1 shot advantage for Minnesota, which went 0-for-7 on the power play, including one 5-on-3. SCSU was 0-for-5.