With the end of the season fast approaching, the No. 3 Boston University women’s hockey team has found itself on a program-best 10-game winning streak. The Terriers’ (18-2-3, 8-1-3 Hockey East) most recent victims, the University of Maine Black Bears (9-11-4, 3-7-2 HE), couldn’t come back from a three-goal first period on Sunday.
While the Terriers are a strong offensive team—ranked fourth in the nation with an average of 3.87 goals per game—they are not known for scoring early. But 31 seconds into Sunday’s game, graduate student defenseman Catherine Ward scored BU’s first goal, picking up a pass from senior forward Jillian Kirchner that deflected off of a Maine player and knocking it into the net. Less than three minutes later, junior forward Jenn Wakefield scored her team-leading 20th goal of the season. Junior forward Jenelle Kohanchuk ended the offensive surge with a power-play goal 6:40 into the frame.
“We’ve got enough talent where I think we can get some good first periods in,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “For different reasons we haven’t come out flying in those first periods. But it was nice to get started today in a big game like this.”
Despite the three goals, BU only had a slight lead going into the second period. Maine had picked up two goals, one on a power play, in the first. However, this was the closest they would come to catching up.
Halfway through the second, freshman forward Marie-Philip Poulin scored on a breakaway to put the Terriers up by two. Sophomore forward Taylor Holze finished off the scoring for BU 36 seconds into the third.
“We might go on the ice with a whisker more talent,” Durocher said, “but [Maine] certainly played extremely hard and I give them a lot of credit.”
Through the past five weeks of the season, the Terriers have shown their offensive and defensive prowess, scoring at least four goals in each contest and holding two teams scoreless.
On Jan. 15, BU took on rival Boston College (14-4-4, 8-2-2 HE), one of two teams that has defeated the Terriers. Freshman goaltender Kerrin Sperry earned her second straight shutout against the Eagles and her fourth of the season. Kirchner and Poulin scored a goal apiece and Wakefield had two tallies in the 4-0 win.
On Jan. 9, BU had its closest game of this streak, beating out Providence College (15-8-1, 6-5-1 HE) 4-3 in dramatic fashion. Senior captain Holly Lorms had two goals, one of which came with 55 seconds left to the game to give the Terriers the win.
BU had another 4-0 shutout on Jan. 2. This time Brown (2-12-3, 1-6-3 Eastern College Athletic Conference) fell to the Terriers’ defense and the goaltending of Fromkin. Fromkin turned aside 14 shots for her first shutout of the season and BU had goals from four different players.
In December, before the team had its own brief break, the Terriers defeated Harvard University (8-7-2, 7-3-2 ECAC) for the first time in program history, 5-3. Kohanchuk, Wakefield and Poulin all had multi-point games and Sperry put aside 27 shots for the win.
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