Ohio State Women’s Hockey Makes Fifth Straight Frozen Four with 6-1 Win over St. Lawrence in NCAA Regional Final

By Dan Hope on March 15, 2025 at 8:24 pm
Ohio State women’s hockey celebrating its regional final win over St. Lawrence
Ohio State Dept. of Athletics
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Ohio State women’s hockey is headed to its fifth straight Frozen Four.

The defending national champions secured their Frozen Four berth with a 6-1 win over St. Lawrence in an NCAA regional final game at the OSU Ice Rink on Saturday.

Ohio State scored the game’s final six goals, including four in the game’s final nine minutes, to earn an NCAA quarterfinal win for the fifth straight year.

St. Lawrence took an early lead in the first period when Aly McLeod scored a power-play goal after Ohio State defenseman Sara Swiderski received a five-minute major penalty for elbowing. The Saints’ lead lasted for only seven minutes, however, before Ohio State’s Sloane Matthews evened the score with a 4-on-4 goal assisted by Makenna Webster.

Ohio State took the lead with 1:14 left to play in the first period when Joy Dunne rebounded the puck off a blocked shot and put it past St. Lawrence’s Emma-Sofie Nordström for a goal.

Neither team scored in the second period; the Buckeyes had 22 shots on goal compared to just one for St. Lawrence, but were unable to get any of those shots past Nordström. The score stayed tight at 2-1 into the second half of the third period, but Ohio State finally gained some breathing room with 8:24 left to play when Jocelyn Amos scored the Buckeyes’ third goal of the game.

The floodgates opened from there as Webster gave the Buckeyes a commanding three-goal lead just over two minutes later.

Dunne scored her second goal of the night – and 50th of her career – on an empty net with 2:22 left to play.

Jordyn Petrie scored a goal with less than 20 seconds remaining on the game clock to make it a five-goal win for the Buckeyes.

Ohio State coach Nadine Muzerall believes her team can win its second straight national championship if the Buckeyes play in the Frozen Four as well as they did against St. Lawrence.

“I'm just really excited for what next week will look like if they play the way they did tonight; I feel confident that they're going to have a very good chance of winning it all,” Muzerall said. “It's hard, though. It's hard to get there, and it's hard to win.”

Ohio State, who earned the No. 2 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament, will play No. 3 seed Cornell in the Frozen Four semifinals next Friday in Minneapolis. The game will begin at either 5 or 8:30 p.m. and will be broadcast by ESPN+. Ohio State earned a 7-3 win over Cornell in the championship game of the Women’s Ice Breaker Tournament in October, the only previous meeting between the Buckeyes and Big Red this season.

If the Buckeyes beat the Big Red, Ohio State will advance to the national championship game for the fourth consecutive year. Ohio State defeated Minnesota Duluth to win its first-ever national championship in 2022 and defeated Wisconsin to win its second national title last year, avenging a loss to the Badgers in the 2023 national championship game.

Wisconsin is the No. 1 seed in this year’s tournament and will play Minnesota in the other semifinal next Friday, setting up the possibility of a third straight Buckeyes vs. Badgers matchup in the national championship game, which will be played on Sunday, March 23 in Minneapolis (4 p.m., ESPNU).

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