It’s national tournament week for the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) women’s hockey team.

On Tuesday they officially landed in Columbus, Ohio to make their fourth straight NCAA tournament appearance. The eighth ranked Bulldogs are first pitted against ninth ranked University of Connecticut (UConn), who’s coming off their first Hockey East conference championship in program history.

“We were able to watch them play a decent amount, and our staff has been working hard breaking down tape to get our players prepared. Hockey East champions here, regular season and tournament champions, so they’re going to come in with a level of confidence in what they just accomplished. We’ve been looking at their structures and their systems but ultimately, as you always hear us talk about, this is about us,” UMD head coach Maura Crowell said.

Since the NCAA added a Regional round to the national tournament three years ago, the Bulldogs have been perfect going 2-0 in round one.

UMD (20-13-4) drops the puck against UConn (25-7-5) Thursday at 6 p.m. CT at the OSU Ice Rink. For the full NCAA DI women’s hockey bracket, Click Here.