The UND women's hockey finally got to Wisconsin goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens a couple of times Sunday afternoon.
It wasn't nearly enough, though.
Sarah Nurse scored four goals for Wisconsin and the top-ranked Badgers finished a two-game sweep of UND with a 5-2 victory in Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Nurse finished the weekend with five of Wisconsin's seven goals as the Badgers stayed perfect at 7-0-1. UND dropped to 4-3-1.
The Fighting Hawks, who had managed just one goal in their past four games against former Patty Kazmaier Award finalist Desbiens, received goals from defenseman Jordan Hampton and forward Rebekah Kolstad.
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It wasn't nearly enough to take out the nation's top team.
"I thought we got a little bit of a lesson on how to control momentum and how to be a championship-caliber club," UND coach Brian Idalski said. "I thought Wisconsin did a great job. Every time we got our feet going and got some momentum on our side, they were able to answer quickly."
Nurse's five goals on the weekend matched or exceeded every team in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's output this weekend.
"She's very talented," Idalski said. "Skated extremely well. It's something we talked about prior-giving her turnovers makes the ice easy for her and we definitely didn't want to do that. But we've got some things to work on. There are some positives. Not everything is wrong when you lose and not everything is right when you win. We identified some things. We have to be better."
The next two series are critical for UND.
The Fighting Hawks play a home-and-home against Bemidji State next weekend, then host Minnesota Duluth after a week off.
UND figures to be in a battle with the Beavers and Bulldogs to finish in the top half of the WCHA and earn home-ice for the first round of the playoffs.
"It's going to be a completely different game (next weekend)," Idalski said. "This is the first weekend where someone really, really came after us, pinched hard, forechecked hard. Their 'D' stepped up on pretty much everything, and obviously, we weren't prepared for that. I have to do a little better job with that next time, for sure."
