In a weekend where it sought to extend its two-game unbeaten streak, the No. 7/8 Boston University women’s hockey team split a series at Robert Morris University, coming away with a 5-2 win Friday night and dropping its first game of the season 3-0 Saturday afternoon.
“You can have a chance to sweep a weekend, and, worse comes to come to worst, you get a split on the road, which isn’t the worst thing in the world,” said BU coach Brian Durocher on winning the first game of the series.
“I thought we didn’t play very hard or smart in the first period, and that set a negative tone [in the second game]. But they [Robert Morris] played a near-perfect game.”
In the first contest, the Terriers (2-1-1) peppered goaltender Courtney Vinet with 10 shots in the first period. Vinet and the Colonials (4-2-0) stifled the attack until BU went on the power play at the 12:23 mark. Just seven seconds into the man-advantage, the Terriers grabbed the early lead.
Freshman defenseman Sarah Steele corralled the opening faceoff on the power play and ripped a shot from the point that junior forward Kayla Tutino deflected past Vinet at 12:30.
BU kept the pressure on the Colonials, and, at 15:24, the Terriers scored once again. Freshman forward Maddie Elia took the puck up the right wing and fed it across to the left side of the ice to senior forward Louise Warren. Vinet stopped Warren’s first attempt but the Terrier captain jammed the rebound past Vinet for the Terriers’ second goal of the contest.
The Colonials responded in the second with two goals of their own.
First, forward Thea Imbrogno took advantage of a loose puck and tapped it by Sperry to cut the Terriers’ lead in half. A few minutes later, Robert Morris evened out the score when the Colonials took advantage of a power-play opportunity as Sarah Lefort sat in the box for checking. Defenseman Anneline Lauziere took a shot from just above the right circle that went past Sperry.
With the score evened entering the third frame, the Terriers experienced an offensive explosion when they scored three goals in just under six minutes.
At 13:19, the Terriers broke through when Tutino found Lefort on the left side and Lefort backhanded it by Vinet for the lead. Not long after that, freshman forward Samantha Sutherland tallied her first collegiate goal as she put a rebound past the Robert Morris netminder for a 4-2 lead. With 55 seconds remaining in the contest, senior forward Taylor Holze put the game out of reach with a goal at 19:05, giving the Terriers a 5-2 win.
“I think we made some good hockey plays [in the third period],” Durocher said. “It may have been a little puck-luck and a little bit of bounces, but I liked the fact that we had some initial rush goals.”
In the second game of the weekend set, the Terriers made a change in goal and started freshman goaltender Victoria Hanson in favor of Sperry.
“I think [Hanson] was ready to play,” Durocher said. “She showed that she has the ability to play at this level. We don’t make a career out of one game, but it was a nice start.”
In her first period of play at the collegiate level, Hanson made 11 saves against the Colonial attack. At the 10:08 mark, however, Robert Morris pushed its first goal across to take the lead.
Although BU took nine shots in the period, it could not score against Colonial goaltender Jessica Dodds.
In the second period, the Colonials got on the board again despite only having seven shots in the frame. After BU took a penalty, Robert Morris scored on the ensuing power play when freshman Maeve Garvey put a rebound by Hanson.
Down 2-0 in the third, the Terriers looked to tie up the score, as they recorded nine shots. Dodds, however, held on for her second shutout of the season.
The Colonials added an empty-net goal at 19:18 from defenseman Kylie St. Louis to seal the contest with a 3-0 final tally.
“I really don’t think I can count on one hand the number of good chances we had,” Durocher said. “Credit to Robert Morris, but we just have to be a bit more determined and play a bit harder.”
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