Friday afternoon the eighth ranked University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) women’s hockey team shut out 10th ranked St. Cloud State University 5-0 to open their best-of-three Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) quarterfinal series at AMSOIL Arena.

After a scoreless first period, UMD’s Reece Hunt opened the scoring in the first three minutes of the second period. Later in the frame, Mary Kate O’Brien made it 2-0 scoring on a power play.

Leading 2-0 after the second, Clara Van Wieren added another power-play goal early in the third period. Olivia Wallin would make it 4-0, then Ida Karlsson scored her first career goal to complete the 5-0 victory.

In net for UMD Hailey MacLeod would earn the shutout making 20 saves.

“Told the team I like the way we played smart,” head coach Maura Crowell said. “It was Hailey right at the beginning when they were getting good looks, they came out in the first five minutes and had five shots to our zero. I thought our D was really good at controlling pucks, controlling the play. Two power play goals, massive, penalty kill 100%, that’s massive.”

UMD will seek the series sweep, and a spot in the WCHA Final Face-Off, in game two with the Huskies Saturday. Puck drop is set for 3 p.m. at AMSOIL Arena.

Also on Friday, graduate forward and captain Mannon McMahon broke the UMD women’s program record for most games played skating in her 169th career match.