Last year, despite a strong Boston University sweep of Blaise McDonald’s University of Massachusetts at Lowell team, the coach said he thought BU goalie Sean Fields was ‘shaky.’
This year McDonald a former assistant coach for Jack Parker was singing a far different tune.
‘I thought Sean Fields played outstanding,’ McDonald said of the BU junior. ‘He didn’t give us much to shoot at all night. We obviously had some great chances.’
Fields made 36 saves, leading the Icedogs to a 3-2 victory over the River Hawks in a game where almost all the scoring action was condensed into a wild final half of the third period.
On each Lowell goal, Fields was beyond reproach. Ed McGrane’s second period blast to the upper glove side was well-hidden by traffic in front, and Mark Concannon’s third period wrister came off a turnover by senior captain Freddy Meyer that allowed the Lowell senior to skate in alone on Fields.
Other than that, the Man with the Golden Glove came up huge, keeping BU in a game it probably didn’t deserve to win. The Terriers were sluggish throughout most of the contest, and it took senior assistant captain John Sabo’s third period goal to get some supporst. But Fields was never down on his mates.
‘I wasn’t really [getting discouraged],’ Fields said. ‘Once you start getting down on your teammates then you’ve pretty much already lost the game. I just wanted to keep the game close, because we’re an explosive team, we can score goals when we need to.’
Although Fields has been solid this year, only one other game could be pointed to as a contest where he ‘stood on his head’ his performance at the University of New Hampshire when he saved 42 shots in another 3-2 BU victory.
In his most recent game before last night’s gem, a 7-3 loss to the University of Maine, Fields suffered the ignominy of an early shower, with Parker pulling him after 35 minutes and five goals against.
‘It’s huge, the Maine game was very disappointing, it was embarrassing to me,’ Fields said. ‘If we’re gonna go places, I’m gonna have to play better than I did. I just wanted to not sit on the Maine game and come back and have a strong game.’
Fields recovered big time, impressing his own coach, who said the score could have been 7-1 after the second period, and the opposing players and coach.
‘He played great tonight,’ McGrane said. ‘He was seeing the puck well. We had guys in front of the net and he was sniffing that puck out.
‘There are great goalies in this league, and he’s one of them.’
‘[We had] a breakaway to start the third period he was just very very solid all night,’ McDonald said. ‘He really kept the team in the game and gave them a sense of being.’
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