UND skaters celebrate after a goal at Ralph Engelstad Arena. Photo by Chester Beltowski/The Dakota Student.

The UND women’s hockey team finished its regular season last weekend with a pair of wins over Mankato State that locked it into a third place finish in conference play.

After receiving the results from Sunday’s game between Ohio State and Minnesota Duluth that finalized the seeding for the tournament, UND found out it will host WCHA rival Ohio State in the first round of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs.

For North Dakota, this second half of the season has been a success.

“We are what we are,” Idalski said. “We embrace that, and we just need to continue to play in respect to the streak and what we’ve done to get on this roll and keep it going.”

A best-of-three series will be played at Ralph Engelstad this weekend between North Dakota and Ohio State, starting with puck drop at 2:07 p.m. today. North Dakota has claimed a home ice advantage for the first round of the WCHA playoffs in the past five seasons and has seen success on home ice during the first round in years past.

North Dakota only needed two games at Ralph Engelstad Arena last season to knock Bemidji State out of the playoffs, and in 2013 did the same to Minnesota State on home ice. The team saw success against Ohio State during the regular season, going 3-0-1 against the Buckeyes as it swept them once on the road.

The Buckeyes come into Grand Forks this weekend having lost their last two games of the season against Minnesota Duluth. Ohio State is 5-6-1 against conference opponents since the holiday break. Two of their losses came at home against UND.

The Green and White, on the other hand, were a completely different team in the second half of the season after struggling to build a win streak in weeks prior. The team went 13-2-1 down the stretch. North Dakota played in 28 conference games this season and finished in third place in the WCHA with a record of 16-9-3.

Solid special teams playing along with excellent goaltending from the junior Shelby Amsley-Benzie have remained strong attributes of North Dakota’s game as it enters the post-season.

Amsley-Benzie, who hasn’t allowed a goal in 267:49 minutes played and has posted shutouts in North Dakota’s last four games, will look to continue her outstanding play between the pipes this weekend.

North Dakota also will look to its disciplined penalty killing unit to stay strong going into the first round of playoffs. The Green and White have killed 93 of 102 penalties in conference games this year for the second best penalty kill percentage in the WCHA behind Wisconsin.  Amy Menke also leads North Dakota with three shorthanded goals this season.

The team’s power play ranks No. 2 in the conference behind Minnesota, converting on 18.3 percent of its opportunities with the man advantage. Becca Kohler, Meghan Dufault, and Josefine Jakobsen all lead North Dakota with four power play goals.

Games scheduled between North Dakota and Ohio State will be played on Friday, Saturday and Sunday if needed. Each game has a scheduled puck drop of 2:07 p.m. at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

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