McGill, Clarkson Knock Minnesota Out Of Women's Frozen Four
ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) — Rhyen McGill scored with 1:31 left and Clarkson never trailed in its 4-3 win over Minnesota on Friday night in the women's Frozen Four.
Minnesota was attempting to become just the second team in NCAA history to win three straight national titles.
Genevieve Bannon, Loren Gabel and Savannah Harmon each added a goal for No. 2 Clarkson (31-4-5), which will play No. 1 Wisconsin in the championship game Sunday. The Golden Knights lost their two regular-season matchups against the Badgers.
Minnesota (26-8-5), which has won four of the last five NCAA titles, had its streak of five straight national championship game appearances snapped. The No. 5 Golden Gophers have won all four of their regular-season games against Clarkson by a combined score of 14-0, but fell to 1-2-0 against the Golden Knights in the postseason.
After dumping the puck into Minnesota territory for a line change, Bannon came up with a steal and dropped it to Cayley Mercer, whose one-timer was stopped by Sidney Peters. But McGill poked the rebound into the net for the winner.
Bannon opened the scoring nearly 13 minutes in, but Kate Schipper tied it nearly five minutes later. After Gabel made it 2-1 midway through the second period, Minnesota's Sarah Potomak answered with a goal 60 seconds before intermission.
McGill scored an unassisted goal about five minutes into the third, but Sophie Skarzynski's putback of Lindsay Agnew's shot made it 3-all with 5:03 to go.
Clarkson's other appearance in the title game was a 5-4 win over Minnesota in 2014.
Only Minnesota-Duluth (2001-03) has won three straight national championships.
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