One of the definitions of the word captain is someone who is the leader of a team.

University of North Dakota senior wing and team captain Mark Senden filled that role to perfection Saturday night in front of a sellout crowd of 11,617 at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

Senden had a career-best two goals and added one assist to have a hand in every goal the No. 6-ranked Fighting Hawks scored in a 3-2 victory over No. 11 Minnesota to split the non-conference series with the long-time rival Gophers.

Senden scored on a wrist shot on a power-play rush at 13:37 of the second period and tapped in a pass from Connor Ford after fierce forechecking by UND led to his second goal at 5:53 of the third period to make it 3-0. That was enough to withstand a power-play goal by Minnesota’s Ben Myers at 7:35 and an extra attacker goal by Chaz Lucius at 16:30 of the closing period that made a game dominated by UND close at the end.

“It was so great to see him (Senden) put it in the back of the net twice tonight,” said defenseman Cooper Moore, who had another strong game.

After UND lost 5-1 to Minnesota Friday night, a series of team, group and individual meetings followed Saturday afternoon, leading to Saturday’s vastly-improved performance.

“That’s the guy who steps up in the forefront and says, ‘hey, I’m going to lead this team the right way on the ice’ — and he did, ” Berry said of Senden, who played a big part in the meetings. “Ultimate leadership.”

Senden, from Medina, Minn., came into the game with one goal in 14 games this season, but tripled that total in one game against his home-state team.

There was nothing complicated about how UND turned Friday’s clunker into a gem one night later. It did so by simplifying its game, chipping the pucks in deep into the Minnesota zone, forechecking the defensemen and being considerably more physical without taking needless penalties.

UND outshot Minnesota 26-13, the lowest shots by a UND opponent this year, and the lowest of the season for the Gophers (9-7-0). The Gophers dropped to No. 11 in the Pairwise rankings after the loss while UND (10-5-0) moved up to No. 4, one of six NCHC teams in the top 11 in the Pairwise.

Another Minnesota product, senior wing Gavin Hain from Grand Rapids, set the tone for the game with deflection goal through the legs of Gopher goalie Jack LaFontaine (23 saves) on a Senden shot at 3:27 of the opening period. It was his third goal of the season and second in the last four games.

UND brought out new jerseys with the word “NoDak” spelled diagonally across the front, a nod to UND teams of the past that first wore that version of the jersey. The players called them their “blizzard suits,” in reference to the black jerseys (“business suits”) they wear on the road for special games. Good luck or not they are now 1-0 in wins/losses when wearing them.

“Really good effort by a lot of guys,” Berry said. “Last night for the first couple periods, we were slow, we didn’t move, we were stationary. Tonight, we checked all over the ice. I thought we did a good job of tracking and playing as a five-man unit, together, not having spaces in our game.”

What else that stood out was that UND’s players had active sticks, intercepting many Gopher passes to break up plays before they could form. “We skated, and we checked a lot harder than we did last night,” Berry said.

The victory kept the Fighting Hawks from being swept at home for the first time since Nov. 16-17, 2018 by Western Michigan, and also gave UND five wins over the Gophers in their last six meetings.