For North Dakota, four unanswered goals proved to be enough.

The UND women’s hockey team traveled to Duluth last weekend, defeating the Bulldogs 4-3 on Saturday and posting a 2-2 tie Sunday afternoon, in which Duluth claimed the extra point in the shootout.

UND is without several leaders due to the Olympics, but Josefine Jakobsen stepped up this weekend to help North Dakota beat UMD with two of the four goals scored by UND in Saturday afternoon’s game.

Meghan Dufault joined Jakobsen on both of her goals and also assisted on a goal by Sam LaShomb, in what turned out to be a three point game for Dufault.

“We had talked to (Jakobsen) about shooting the puck,” UND coach Brian Idalski said. “She has such a good release and a couple nice opportunities for her to catch and shoot in the seam and was able to get a couple big goals for us today.

“We need her right now to be one of our better players, so she definitely stepped up today and played a huge game for us.”

Jakobsen has been a leader for UND all year and helped North Dakota when it faced a three goal deficit early in the game Saturday afternoon, as she was able to produce goals to notch the win.

“We knew that the first period was unacceptable,” Jakobsen said. “We were not ready at all, and after coach gave us a little speech in the locker room, we came out harder .and we knew we got to be better when we got back out there.”

Despite the goal deficit, UND continued to fight back and proved the team was capable of a comeback.

“I was proud that we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves,” Idalski said. “We continued to execute the play, regardless of the score. Once we got rolling, we felt pretty good there in the third. All in all, it was a nice gritty win for our club — much needed points here down the stretch.”

After an up and down afternoon Saturday, the teams returned for Sunday’s game. UND had the early lead, but the Bulldogs climbed back as the game ended in a 2-2 tie and was forced into both an overtime period and a shootout.

UND lost in the shootout, but was credited with the 2-2 tie.

UND’s next opponent will be Minnesota State-Mankato this weekend back home at Ralph Engelstad Arena on Saturday and Sunday at 2:07 p.m.

It will be the last regular season home series before playoffs start. UND will have one more road series after facing Mankato to conclude the regular season.

Mariah Holland is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].