Terriers earn trip to Beanpot championship

The Boston University women’s ice hockey team earned a victory in the first round of the Beanpot tournament with goals from five different Terriers to beat No. 7/8 Harvard University 5-2 Tuesday night at Walter Brown Arena.

“I think we had a really good crowd and the BU band and the BU fans did very well supporting us tonight,” said sophomore forward Marie-Philip Poulin.

In direct contrast to the Terriers’ last outing, it was all BU (15-12-1, 9-7 Hockey East) until the third period when Harvard (14-7-1) scored its only goals of the game.

“I think it’s always important to come up with the first goal,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “It’s not too many times when you can get a multiple goal lead in this game.”

The Terriers opened the competition with the puck remaining in Harvard’s zone for a majority of the first period. BU outshot the Crimson 19-4 in the first frame.

Junior forward Jill Cardella scored the first goal of the tilt 6:30 in on an assist from senior defenseman Tara Watchorn. The short-handed goal was Cardella’s eighth tally of the season.

“Any good team needs balance,” Durocher said. “You can’t count on one person or two people to do it all the time, and it also allows people to realize that we have multiple scorers.”

BU’s special teams once again stepped up for the next point of the game when sophomore defenseman Kaleigh Fratkin capitalized on a pass from senior defenseman Kasey Boucher for a power-play goal.

The Terriers once again attacked first in the second period with a goal from Poulin, her fourth of the season, 4:37 into the frame. Junior forward Isabel Menard provided the assist on a pass that enabled Poulin to lodge the puck out of the reach of Crimson goaltender Laura Bellamy.

Menard then earned a goal of her ownat 18:06, her 12th this season, with help from freshman forward Kayla Tutino and junior forward Taylor Holze.

The Terriers did not stop there. Playing until the whistle, their final goal of the game came from senior captain Jenn Wakefield with five seconds left in the second period. The team’s leading scorer began the play with a pass to redshirt freshman forward Caroline Campbell, which rebounded off Campbell’s skate and back to Wakefield, who lifted the puck over Bellamy’s head.

“We have everyone back and everyone’s on the same page now,” Wakefield said. “It’s just proving that we should get in the rankings sooner than later.”

Harvard put itself on the board with a power-play goal from freshman Sarah Edney, assisted by juniors Kaitlin Spurling and Josephine Pucci.

“I think they had an awful lot of opportunities and man advantage[s], and sooner or later there’s a chance they’re going to capitalize,” Durocher said of Harvard’s late-game production.

Harvard earned more than half of its shots in the last frame, producing 14 out of its 27 game total.

With less than five minutes left in the game, the Crimson went down fighting when they knocked in a power-play goal from junior Jillian Dempsey. Immediately after, the Terriers called a timeout.

“We had to make sure we did not compound matters,” Durocher said. “We didn’t lose our composure and we closed the deal.”

The Terriers ended the game with 38 shots and went 1-for-3 on the power play. Sophomore netminder Kerrin Sperry made 25 stops for her team, 12 of which came in the final two periods. The BU defense allowed only two goals on Harvard’s 11 power-play opportunities.

The Terriers are set to play a repeat of last week’s matchup against No. 7/8 Northeastern in the championship round of the Beanpot, but first they must set their sights on the University of New Hampshire.

“I gave them fifteen hours,” Durocher said. “The good thing is we didn’t play very well up there [against UNH] and that was a game that I think we played a real good first and a real good third. We kind of fell asleep in the second and they got three goals. We couldn’t rally to get it done. Hopefully that is a little bit of motivation for us.”