North Dakota Sweeps St. Cloud State With 3-0 Victory

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — North Dakota goalie Cam Johnson made 36 saves as North Dakota shut out St. Cloud State 3-0 for their second straight National Collegiate Hockey Conference win.

Johnson backstopped a 4-0 win on Friday as well, as the eighth-ranked Fighting Hawks handed the Huskies their first back-to-back shutouts since February 1993.

Johnson has three of his eight career shutouts this season.

"He got challenged tonight," North Dakota coach Brad Berry said. "Last night he had the same thing. He's been doing it; we have to consistently bring it in front of him."

UND (7-4-2, 2-3-1-1) entered the series winless in its previous six starts, with much of the blame on the power play. It was 51st in the nation in penalty kills and 41st in power-play scoring. Rhett Gardner and Shane Gersich scored power-play goals and UND killed off four St. Cloud State (6-7-0, 2-4-0) power plays on Saturday.

"I thought (our performance) was even better than last night," Berry said. "We had some good opportunities. For the most part we played the right way. We played 200 feet."

Tucker Poolman scored the other goal for North Dakota, which swept the Huskies on the road for the first time since 1998.

Goalie Zach Driscoll made 33 saves for St. Cloud State, but was hurt by rebounds, as he was on Friday.

"Hey, we hate lessons," SCSU coach Bob Motzko said. "But that's the kind of team we have right now. We got destroyed. It was a war of a series."

Gardner staked the Hawks to a 1-0 lead at 10:35 of the first period. Gardner camped in front of the net and pounced on a rebound, beating Driscoll.

UND stretched the lead to 2-0 at 16:59 of the second period. Poolman took a pass at the blue line and blasted a rising shot past Driscoll.

Gersich, who had a hat trick in Friday's game, scored his fourth goal of the weekend on the power play at 1:12 of the third. Gersich one-timed a pass from Hayden Shaw for his 10th goal of the season.

"It was a big weekend for us," Gersich said. "We needed two wins to turn our season around."

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