The No. 8 Boston University women’s hockey team got revenge against Boston College Wednesday night, defeating its rival 4-0 at Conte Forum.’
The win serves as payback for a 2-1 loss to the Eagles (4-4-5, 3-3-2-2 Hockey East) on Nov. 2, in the Terriers’ (6-4-5, 4-3-1-1) home opener.
BC outshot BU, 37-23, but was unable to light the lamp on any attempt. It was the second shutout of the season for senior Melissa Haber, who has won her past three games in net. Yesterday’s game marks the seventh shutout of Haber’s career, which ties her with Allyse Wilcox for the most shutouts in program history.
‘Melissa Haber had a good game tonight,’ BU coach Brian Durocher said. ‘Right from the beginning she made the big saves. In the first period particularly there was a rebound shot. She came across and made a fantastic stop with her glove. She also was in great position all night, not only to make the initial save but some of the rebounds. Top-shelf effort by her.’
BU started quickly out of the gate, establishing a 2-0 lead by the end of the first period. Junior forward Lauren Cherewyk’s power-play goal at 9:59 gave the Terriers the early advantage.’ Five minutes later, freshman phenom Jill Cardella tallied her seventh goal of the season to pad the Terriers’ lead. Senior defenseman Sarah Appleton, senior forward Melissa Anderson, junior forward Jillian Kirchner and sophomore forward Jenelle Kohanchuk tallied an assist apiece in the first period.
Boston College threw everything it had at Haber in the second period. However, Haber stood strong, making 19 saves in the period alone. Sophomore defenseman Carly Warren added to the Terriers’ lead when her wrist shot found its way past Eagles’ sophomore goalie Kiera Kingston.
BU capped its scoring with less than two minutes remaining in the second period. Appleton added a goal to her earlier assist when her shot from the top of the left faceoff circle got through traffic in front of the net to beat Kingston.’ ‘
Durocher acknowledged that his team played a solid and smart game, but also got many fortuitous bounces.’
‘We were able to get four goals past because we made some good hockey plays, but we also had a little bit of luck,’ Durocher said. ‘I think we threw a couple [shots] early in the game at the net. In fact all four [goals] were actually wrist shots. The first two, there was a scramble and a rebound, and we put the puck away. The last two we got a little bit of good fortune.’
‘It’s nice to have a little bit of good fortune while you are also playing pretty well.’
One of the biggest struggles for the Terriers this season has been their inability to kill penalties. Tonight was a completely different story. BU killed all eight of the Eagles’ man advantages.’
Before the game started, Durocher emphasized the importance of playing physically in front of the net.’
‘The most important thing was to make sure that we understand how important it is to make life miserable in front of our net,’ Durocher said. ‘We have given up too many easy goals just because we vacate the front of the net, or are careless in the front of the net, or we don’t kind of scan the general area and look for people coming from the weak side or the back side or coming late on the play.’
‘Tonight we had a lot of fights in front of the net and that really helped Melissa Haber.’
While the shot differential may seem to be a cause of concern, Durocher’s main concern is on eliminating easy goals.
‘I think the numbers seem to get a little inflated to 35 or 36 shots and I don’t think they had many second efforts or any easy shots from in tight,’ Durocher said. ‘That is what we really need to take care of business because on the rest of the ice we’ve done a pretty good job.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
