The Boston University women’s hockey team enjoyed a four-point weekend against No. 9 Northeastern University, coming away with a 3-2 shootout win on Saturday and a 2-1 regulation victory on Sunday.
Saturday’s game at Walter Brown Arena began as a defensive battle, with Northeastern (16-8-6, 8-6-5-3 Hockey East) blocking six shots and BU (12-8-12, 8-6-5-3 Hockey East) blocking four in the first period. Neither team scored during the period, despite each having a power-play opportunity.
The Huskies got on the board first, 4:37 into the second period, when freshman forward Brittany Esposito scored on a rebound on a shot by freshman forward Rachel Llanes. But a strong penalty kill with senior forward Melissa Anderson in the box turned the tide the Terriers’ way.
Seconds after Anderson came out of the box, her linemate, junior forward Lauren Cherewyk, converted a feed from freshman forward Jill Cardella to tie the score.
“I saw [Cardella] down on the goal line and I just knew she was going to pass,” Cherewyk said of the goal. “We made eyes and she put it right on my tape, and I just brought it in. I thought it was a good play on her part.”
The Cherewyk line struck again at 14:19 of the second to give the Terriers the lead. As junior goalie Leah Sulyma got caught on the left side of the net defending against a shot from Cherewyk, Anderson positioned herself on the other side and knocked in the rebound.
Though she did not make it onto the scoresheet, sophomore defenseman Kasey Boucher played an important role in preserving BU’s lead in the final minutes of the period, blocking a series of Northeastern shots and keeping the puck away from senior goaltender Melissa Haber for much of the period.
The Huskies finally broke through less than two minutes into the third period with a goal from senior forward Lindsay Berman. BU registered 16 shots on Sulyma in the period, but could not break the 2-2 tie. Neither team managed much offense in overtime, and Sulyma and Haber stopped two shots each to force a shootout.
Both of the previous games between the Terriers and Huskies this season ended in shootout wins for Northeastern. This time, junior forward Holly Lorms, who had not participated in either of the previous shootouts, beat Sulyma, skating in at an angle and then sliding the puck in through the five-hole.
Lorms’s was the only goal the Terriers scored, but it was the only one they needed, as Haber stopped all three Northeastern shooters to secure the win.
“She’s a fantastic goalie,” Lorms said of Sulyma, whose .948 save percentage is good for second in Hockey East, behind only Northeastern’s starting goaltender, Florence Schelling. “With her it’s just about getting the goalie moving, and maybe I caught a little luck finding that opening.”
“We made a little bit of a change today in how we broke the puck out and where we positioned our wings, and I think it really helped us because they didn’t get a chance to bottle us up in our zone,” said BU coach Brian Durocher after Saturday’s game. “In the first period [in the Beanpot semifinal], they got us rattled by hemming us in, forechecking us, and today they weren’t able to do that.”
Though the Huskies scored first in Sunday’s game, the Terriers never got frustrated and didn’t lose their composure. Sophomore defenseman Carly Warren tied the score at the 10:26 mark of the second period with a power-play goal, her second of the season, and Anderson gave BU the lead a few minutes later on a 2-on-1 rush with Cardella.
Anderson, who leads the Terriers in goals with 17, is also third on the list of Hockey East scoring leaders, with 32 points in 31 games. She and her linemates, Cherewyk and Cardella, have combined for 40 percent of the Terriers’ scoring this season.
The Terriers stayed disciplined throughout the game, not taking a single penalty after the first period, and held on to win, 2-1.
“We put two solid games together this weekend, a good 65 minutes on Saturday and a good 60 minutes on Sunday,” Durocher said. “We’ve obviously had some very good games against them but haven’t been able to come up with a regulation win, and that’s been a theme through quite a few of our games this year, not just against Northeastern.”
The weekend lifted the Terriers into a tie with Northeastern for fourth place in Hockey East, just two points behind the three teams tied for first place. Next weekend BU will close out the regular season against the last-place University of Maine and look to secure a high seed in the conference tournament.
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