Gophers captain Taylor Heise has scored a lot of big goals in her career. Friday night she got her latest one.
The fifth-year forward took a centering pass from Grace Zumwinkle and, from the edge of the crease, shot the puck past goalie Emma Soderberg to give the No. 1 Gophers women's hockey team a 3-2 overtime victory over No. 5 Minnesota Duluth at Ridder Arena.
Time elapsed in the extra period? Fifteen seconds.
"A big overtime win here tonight," Gophers coach Brad Frost said. "A great first period for us coming out of the gates [with a 2-0 lead]. To Duluth's credit, they found a way to tie it up in the third, but a nice job by our team to get the win in overtime. It's fun hockey. It's hard, it's tough, and it's the way we all like it."
Ella Huber and Lizi Norton, a defenseman who played at UMD for four seasons, had first-period goals for the Gophers (8-0-1, 8-0-1 WCHA).
But the Bulldogs (7-4, 3-4), who split six games with Minnesota last season, tied the score on goals by Gabby Krause in the second period and Nina Jobst-Smith on a power-play at 3:03 of the third.
Sophomore Skylar Vetter had 27 saves for the Gophers, Soderberg 29 for UMD.
Men's Friday results
No. 13 Penn State 3, No. 1 Michigan 0: The Nittany Lions, at least for one night, proved they are as good as their unbeaten record. Ture Linden and Ashton Calder scored goals in the second period as host Penn State (9-0, 3-0 Big Ten) upset the Wolverines (7-2, 0-1). Liam Souliere made 17 saves for the Nittany Lions, Noah West 45 for Michigan.