Saturday was the WCHA Final Face-Off semifinals at Ridder Arena. First seed Wisconsin, 22-2-4-3, faced fourth seed North Dakota, 11-12-5-3, at 2pm. An hour after that game second seed Minnesota, 19-4-5-3, took third seed Minnesota Duluth, 19-5-4-1, to determine who would move onto the tournament finals.
North Dakota’s goaltender Lexie Shaw was already being tested just 48 seconds into the game when a Badger came down the right side and a crash of bodies pushed her into the net. Wisconsin started the game by boxing North Dakota into their zone and the Hawks would occasionally break out to make a run at Ann-Reneé Desbiens, but that soon dissolved into a lot of back and forth for the rest of the period.