North Dakota women’s hockey was swept this past weekend in a WCHA series on the road against Bemidji State. UND wasn’t able to get any sort of momentum going in both games, getting outscored by the Beavers 4-1 on Friday and 2-1 on Saturday.

UND jumped out to an early lead in Friday’s game when sophomore forward Lisa Marvin scored her first goal of the season, but the team was unable to build off its early momentum.  Bemidji quickly got going on the scoreboard, netting a goal just over a minute after North Dakota scored.

North Dakota fought from behind for all of the third period, trailing 3-1 for the majority period until Bemidji State finished the game off with an empty net goal from Kaitlyn Tougas, who finished with a 3-point night.

Saturday’s game was similar to Friday’s in that UND spent most of the game trailing by multiple goals to the Beavers.

Bemidji scored two goals in the second, putting them up 2-0 going into the final period of the weekend. North Dakota was behind until Tanja Eisenschmid scored with a shot from the point to give UND an opportunity to make a comeback.

UND made a final attempt to force overtime by pulling goaltender Lexi Shaw with a little over a minute remaining in the game. North Dakota generated a good scoring opportunity with minimal time remaining by creating a scrum in front of the net as the puck was deflected off Bemidji State’s goaltender and into the net, but was ruled no goal with the final horn coming before the puck crossed the goal line.

North Dakota has been struggling in recent weeks as it has not registered a win since October 17 against Minnesota Duluth.

Bemidji State, on the other hand, turned its season around the previous weekend by winning a series and taking five points from No. 1 ranked Minnesota.

Bemidji won in a shootout in the first game of the series and shut out the Gophers in their Saturday matchup.

Brittni Mowat was able to make 36 saves in the win over Minnesota, marking her fifth career shutout. Going into that weekend, Minnesota was 86-2-2 in its last 90 games played.

UND dropped to 5-7-1 after this weekend’s loses at Bemidji State to move it out of the national polls. North Dakota will have a solid opportunity next weekend when it hosts an Ohio State team that has been struggling as of late, losing its last three games played.

North Dakota will start a two week homestand at Ralph Engelstad Arena when Ohio State comes to Grand Forks.

The following weekend will bring St. Cloud State, which also has seen minimal success this season with its own losing record of 5-6-1.

The puck will drop Friday night at 7:07 p.m. against Ohio State.

Ben Novak is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].