Ann-Renee Desbiens (Photo by David Stluka).
Wisconsin Badger women’s hockey goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens is no stranger to rewriting the NCAA record books as she broke the NCAA single-season record for shutouts, goals-against average and save percentage last year.
Desbiens made more NCAA history on Sunday, breaking the NCAA career shutout record with her 44th as the top-ranked Badgers topped Bemidji State, 6-0, at LaBahn Arena.
“I’m definitely happy about it,” Desbiens said. “I’ll stop getting questions about it now that I have it, maybe not. But it’s fun to have especially after this week, which was a little harder. It’s a victory mentally, I would say. It’s nice to be able to do that as a team to show how consistent we’ve been.”
Desbiens passed former Minnesota netminder Noora Raty on the NCAA all-time list, regardless of division or gender.
“We’ve been fortunate to have a couple good goaltenders,” UW head coach Mark Johnson said. “Jessie Vetter had a wonderful career, won three national championships and played in a couple Olympics. Then Alex Rigsby came along and duplicated and played very well for us for four years. For Ann-Renee, the bar was set high when she came in and took over.
Desbiens stopped 14 shots from Bemidji State (4-7-1, 2-7-1-0 WCHA) in the milestone game, earning her sixth shutout of the season, which leads the country. She has a 0.74 goals-against average, which also leads the NCAA, while her save percentage of .953 and winning percentage of .958 rank second in the nation.
Badger teammate Sarah Nurse became the 22nd player in Wisconsin history to reach 100 points with her second goal against the Beavers.
The Badgers improved to 11-0-1 overall, 9-0-1-1 in the WCHA.
Wisconsin gets this week off before resuming play with a tough series at number-three Minnesota-Duluth Nov. 18-19.