Ohio State wins NCAA women's hockey national championship - ESPN

No. 1 seed Ohio State downed No. 2 Wisconsin 1-0 in the NCAA hockey national title game in Durham, New Hampshire on Sunday to capture the program's second championship in three years.

Freshman Joy Dunne's third-period goal wound up the game-winner thanks to a 26-save shutout performance from Buckeyes goaltender Raygan Kirk. It was an impressive end to Dunne's campaign after she led Ohio State with 23 goals and 38 points to earn WCHA and NCAA Rookie of the Year honors.

The Buckeyes (34-4-0), making their third straight appearance in the final, avenged last year's 1-0 loss to deny the Badgers from capturing back-to-back titles. Wisconsin (35-5-0) won a record seventh championship in 2023, breaking a then-tie with Minnesota.

It was Dunne doing the tie-breaking for Ohio State on Sunday.

«We were just talking [during the second intermission] about having poise,» Dunne said. «When you take a shot, take a breath [and keep going]. We have a great team; this was a team effort. Right from the start, we knew what the goal was and we did it.»

Much like last year, the championship rematch — the first in two decades — was another surprisingly low-scoring affair between the NCAA's two top-ranked regular season offenses (Wisconsin was first, Ohio State second).

It was Kirk and Wisconsin's Ava McNaughton standing their ground through two scoreless periods, as the Buckeyes held a collective edge in shots at 20-17. The evenly matched squads were careful to stay out of the penalty box all afternoon too, negating any chance of special teams becoming an early factor.

The game didn't widely open up until midway through the third as urgency increased for both sides. Ohio State was down a skater at that point too, with defender Hadley Hartmetz