ITHACA, N.Y. — Exhausted and dejected, the members of the No. 5/6 Boston University women’s hockey team fell in front of their bench on Saturday after playing nearly two full games against No. 3 Cornell University.
The first game, a back-and-forth offensive bout, featured seven goals from each team. Neither squad, however, could get the goal that would decide which team would move on to the NCAA Frozen Four.
After 59 minutes of overtime, Cornell’s Lauriane Rougeau made the ultimate decision, as she ended almost a full game’s worth of extra play with a shot that slipped by BU sophomore netminder Kerrin Sperry to win the game, 8-7.
“I wouldn’t have bet on an 8-7 game,” said BU coach Brian Durocher after the loss. “But then again I wouldn’t have bet on one game with 14 goals, and then one game with one goal. But that’s what we saw today.”
The Terriers (23-14-1, 14-7-0 Hockey East) rode into the game at Lynah Rink in Ithaca, N.Y., on the coattails of a seven-game winning streak – one that was capped off by a double-overtime win in the Hockey East Tournament championship game last weekend.
With that momentum behind them, the Terriers jumped out to an early 3-0 lead to start off Saturday’s contest thanks to goals from sophomore forward Marie-Philip Poulin, freshman forward Kayla Tutino and senior defenseman Kasey Boucher.
Cornell (30-4) would question this lead, however, with just 45 seconds left in the first frame. Riding the energy from it’s late goal, the Big Red came out in the second frame and scored three goals in the first 4:14 of the period to take a resounding come-from-behind 4-3 lead over the Terriers.
In an attempt to stop the leak that had formed on the ice, Durocher called a timeout after Cornell’s third goal.
“We knew we had a couple of things we had to do,” Durocher said. “We got off track there, and all I asked them to do was, well I actually told them . . . ‘No matter what happens in this game, I love ya, but let’s make sure we get back into what we’re supposed to do system-wise and turn back on our mind’ because for a little while we lost the sense of what we were doing there.”
While the Terriers didn’t immediately respond, they eventually found their way back into the game on a goal from Poulin to tie it at four goals apiece.
That wasn’t enough to propel BU into the lead though, as Cornell retook the lead for the second time in the contest 1:07 later on a goal by forward Brianne Jenner, her first of two goals in the game.
Jenner and her linemates Jillian Saulnier and Rebecca Johnston contributed 12 points during the game and had a hand in all but two of Cornell’s goals.
After neither team found the back of the net for the rest of the second period, Cornell opened up the third frame with two more goals to extend its lead to 7-4.
With fewer than nine minutes left in the game, Durocher pulled Sperry with BU on the power play to give the Terriers a six-on-four man advantage. Junior forward Isabel Menard connected seconds after Sperry came off the ice, cutting the Big Red’s lead down to two. This spark gave BU enough ammunition to score two more power-play tallies, including one by Tutino with fewer than two minutes left in the game, to tie it 7-7.
“After they get up 7-4, its one of those mini-miracle comebacks,” Durocher said. “We get lucky, pull the goalie at 7-4, and the kid just gets out there, just gets up the ice, and maybe the sixth person had a little bit of luck going in there. But from there the kids took over, and made one heck of a game out if it.
“From there it was just show time and the 58, 59-odd minutes of hockey after that.”
For much of the next sixty minutes, BU and the Big Red went back and forth, with each team having strong opportunities to end the contest.
Nonetheless, it was not until the final 11 seconds of play in triple overtime that the winner was decided.
Rougeau picked up a rebound from a teammate’s shot and saw an opening in the net, despite the three BU players in her way. She slipped the puck by Sperry and simultaneously sent her team to its third-straight Frozen Four appearance.
“I tip my cap to [Cornell coach] Doug [Derraugh], to the Cornell people, to the great individual play that won that game and everybody that was part of it,” Durocher said.
While clearly disappointed by the loss, Durocher made sure to mention his seniors, who he said have drastically changed the program.
“I usually have a ritual [at the end of the season] in that I try to salute every one of the seniors and we have four seniors and a student manager who all made unbelievable contributions to this team,” Durocher said. “I complimented them, but I went back to the fact that these young ladies, along with the pioneers who started two, three years ago before them, this group has really put Boston University on the map.
“They have a regular season title, two Hockey East titles, a trip to the final game in the NCAA and today did nothing but superlative for them as people, for them as hockey players and for them as contributors to Boston University.
“I thank the young ladies of Boston University. They certainly carried the tradition in proud fashion and played for the name on the front of the jersey.”
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