Caroline Harvey, Claire Enright lead our look at Wisconsin women's hockey

MADISON – A weekly look at the Wisconsin women’s hockey team.

FOR THE RECORD

Badgers climb in polls

UW moved up two spots in the USCHO rankings to No. 6 and climbed one spot to No. 7 in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll. Wisconsin won its series at then-No 3 Minnesota last week, getting one point from a shootout win Friday and scoring a 7-5 victory on Saturday.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Caroline Harvey continues to shine

The WCHA has honored freshman Caroline Harvey twice as its Rookie of the Week and twice as the Rookie of the Month. This week she claimed her first defender of the week award after helping the Badgers win their series at Minnesota.

Saturday her assist to freshman Laila Edwards in the second period tied the game, 2-2. Harvey later scored the game-winning goal at the 16:26 mark of the final period. It was her second game-winner of the season.

With 34 points, only Sis Paulsen and Kerry Weiland, who were both freshman in 1999-2000, have scored more points as rookies in program history.

“When it goes well like Saturday night you watch her in practice today, she’s got a little extra jump in her stride,” UW coach Mark Johnson said. “You can tell her confidence shot up a little bit and you see that with younger players ..."

NOTABLE

Claire Enright puts on show for home crowd

Considering the opponent, UW’s victory Saturday could be considered its most impressive of the season. The seven goals they scored are the most allowed by Minnesota this season. Enright, a freshman from Farmington, Minn., was in the middle of the action with the first three-point game of her career.

She helped UW dig out of a 2-0 deficit with the Badgers’ first goal at the 10:43 mark of the second period and later assisted freshman Kirsten Simms on consecutive goals that gave the Badgers a 4-2 advantage 5½ minutes into the final period. The performance raised Enright's point total to 14 and netted her WCHA Rookie of the Week distinction.

Britta Curl comes through in clutch

Senior captain Britta Curl scored the lone goal in a shootout win for the team Friday. She finished the night with two shots and three blocks. The game marked her first shootout opportunity of the season; UW lost a shootout to the Gophers earlier this season.

“I just had a gut feeling that that it’s better to shoot the puck in a shootout than to deke it,” Johnson said. “I figured Britta being the third person shooting, she’s going to shoot the puck which gives us the best chance to score a goal and it ended perfectly.”

BY THE NUMBERS

5 Goals scored by Badgers freshmen during UW’s victory Saturday.

80 Saves made by goalie Cami Kronish during the Minnesota series last week.

7 Badgers who received WCHA scholar-athlete awards (3.5 grade-point average or better and one-year at their school prior to this school year): Curl, Kronish, Lacey Eden, Jane Gervais, Marianne Picard, Grace Shirley and Sarah Wozniewicz.

COMING UP

Wisconsin could dash top-ranked Ohio State’s WCHA title hopes

Vs. No. 1 Ohio State, 3 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday: The Buckeyes took it to UW in the teams’ last meeting, scoring a 5-0 win on Jan. 14 in which they out-shot the Badgers, 39-17. The Badgers appear to have shaken out of the offensive funk that plagued them at the time. Still, they’ll have their hands full. Both games can be seen on BTN+. Barring an upset loss by Minnesota to St. Thomas, the Buckeyes will need one win to assure themselves of a share of the WCHA title and a sweep to claim the crown outright.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Caroline Harvey, Claire Enright lead our look at Wisconsin hockey