UND’s Amy Menke battles an Ohio State skater when the Buckeyes visited UND in November. Photo by Nicholas Nelson/The Dakota Student.

Coming out of the holiday break, the North Dakota women’s hockey team skated into the second half of the 2014-2015 season with an overall record of 10-9-2.

The team kicked off 2015 last weekend by splitting its last non-conference series of the year against Syracuse University at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

The team won Saturday’s game 4-1, but was unable to pick up the sweep over Syracuse, losing 2-1 Sunday afternoon after outshooting the opposition 45-23.

“I thought we created a lot of offense,” UND coach Brian Idalski said after Sunday’s loss. “We had a fair amount of opportunities, but it’s a little frustrating that we couldn’t finish that off.”

Now that non-conference play has wrapped up for the women’s hockey team this season, it will begin its final stretch of games that will make or break the way the team will finish in the WCHA conference standings.

North Dakota, currently in sixth place in the WCHA with a conference record of 6-8-2, will head to Columbus, Ohio this weekend to work on getting back to .500 in a series at Ohio State.

Ohio State and North Dakota met earlier this season in late November when the Buckeyes traveled to Grand Forks.

Ohio State rallied back against North Dakota. After being down 2-0 going in the final period of play, the Buckeyes came back in the first matchup that forced a draw. Ohio State would go on to claim a shootout win.

North Dakota took the next game away from the Buckeyes by dominating in the third period, scoring three goals and winning in regulation, 4-3. UND’s disciplined penalty kill helped it along in the victory, and has continued to be a strong point in the team’s game as the season has progressed.

Before the break, North Dakota traveled to Rochester, New York where it earned a sweep over RIT and outscored the Tigers 10-2 on the weekend.

Idalski was encouraged with aspects of his team’s overall game after the wins in Rochester.

“Special teams, especially penalty kill, has been pretty good strength of ours in the first half,” Idalski said. “And it was nice for our power play to get some opportunities to finish off some plays, so it’s definitely something to build off for the next half.”

North Dakota hopes to carry its solid special teams play over into the second half of the season as the team eyes on increasing its rank in the WCHA standings this weekend. A sweep on the road over the No. 3 ranked team in the WCHA to start off this long stretch of conference games would be huge for women’s hockey going forward.

UND will have to be bring a strong game to Ohio if it hopes to take six points away from the Buckeyes and gain some ground in the WCHA.

This won’t be an easy task as the Buckeyes are currently riding a six-game win streak, all of which have come on the road, and now have the opportunity to take that momentum back to their home rink.

Wisconsin and Minnesota are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in the WCHA conference.

The race drops off from there with Ohio State in third with 30 points, Minnesota Duluth with 28, Bemidji State with 26 and North Dakota with 21.

The middle of the pack may not be where UND hopes to finish, and this weekend’s series at Ohio State will provide North Dakota with a chance to push itself ahead.

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