A physical game Saturday afternoon between the St. Thomas women’s hockey team and St. Catherine’s ended in a 2-2 tie.

St. Kate’s forward Michaela Michaelson’s game-tying goal with 40 seconds remaining in the third period sent the game into overtime. The Wildcats needed a win to stay in the playoff race, and the goal kept their hopes alive for another five minutes.

“I wasn’t happy about giving up that goal late today,” coach Tom Palkowski said. “I thought we played very well in the third period and then made that one mistake.”

St. Kate’s coach Brad Marshall made a desperate move by pulling his goalie midway through overtime. Even with six skaters on the ice, the Wildcats were unable to score.

St. Thomas outshot the Wildcats in both games of this weekend’s series but failed to get a win.

The two teams committed a combined 15 penalties in the first two periods Saturday.

“We took a couple dumb [penalties] and they took a couple dumb ones,” Palkowski said. “But you would hope we would play a little smarter.

Meghan Lange scored St. Kate’s first goal on a 5-on-3 power play.

“Whenever we play St. Kate’s, it’s really physical,” junior Jamie Tiede said. “We always are going back and forth with them. There are always going to be a lot of penalties, because we’re both really passionate about playing. It was just a really physical game.”

The physical play included St. Thomas goalie Alise Riedel getting “rocked a couple of times,” junior Justina DeBruzzi said.

“There was a girl coming in after the whistle was blown, trying to hit at our goalie, so I took her out,” DeBruzzi said. “It was a little bit more than I had intended, but that’s OK.”

Along with her roughing penalty, DeBruzzi netted a first-period goal. She scored in both games of the series with St. Kate’s.

“I had the same goal yesterday,” DeBruzzi said. “MG [Mary Grace Flesher] shot from the point. The rebound came off one of their defenders so I pulled it off my backhand and put it upstairs.”

St. Thomas will close the regular season with two games at Concordia-Moorhead.

“We will hopefully lock up second place and get a home game [in the playoffs],” Palkowski said. “Hopefully take care of business and get a chance at Gustavus again.”

Alex Keil can be reached at amkeil@stthomas.edu.