Second verse worse

For the second time in three games, a slow start doomed the No. 3 Boston University women’s hockey team in a 2-1 loss to No. 7 Boston College on Tuesday night.

In the Terriers’ (22-4-3, 12-2-3 Hockey East) first game without freshman forward and leading scorer Marie-Philip Poulin, who suffered a hand injury against University of New Hampshire on Feb. 5, they outshot BC (19-5-4, 12-3-2 HE) 33-14. But BC senior goalie Molly Schaus was nearly perfect, and the Eagles survived a late Terrier comeback attempt to both win the season series between the two teams and advance to next Tuesday’s Beanpot finals, where they will play Harvard University. The Terriers will face Northeastern University in the consolation game.

BU had plenty of chances to jump out to an early lead, with several odd-man rushes and a power play in the first 15 minutes of the game. But each time, they made one pass too many, trying to set up a perfect shot that just wasn’t there. Most of the players on the Terriers’ first two lines passed up a clear shot on Schaus at some point in the first period, trying to set up a teammate for a better look.

“I don’t think we got a high quality of shots, but we had at least three, if not four, two-on-ones and three-on-ones that we did very little with,” BU coach Brian Durocher said. “Boston College plays a very engaging and forechecking-minded game, but they give up opportunities, and you have to cash in. Obviously you’re going against an all-world goalie back there [in Schaus], but we’ve gotten pucks past her before, and tonight was a night we got one by her.”

The Terriers’ hesitation came back to hurt them when the Eagles got on the board with just 3.5 seconds left in the first. BC forward Mary Restuccia cut through the slot with little resistance from two BU players in front of the net and knocked a rebound past freshman goalie Kerrin Sperry.

“It really stung,” Durocher said of the goal. “It was a goal that, if you look, you’ll see four red jerseys and a goalie back there and one kid behind the net, and one kid [Restuccia] coming down Broadway, and unfortunately that kid was allowed to get the puck, and you’ve got to give us some credit for a mental error there. We all hustled to get back there, so we did the physical part of it, but you just can’t check out mentally because the clock’s winding down.”

Five minutes into the third, BC senior Kelli Stack, who had assisted on Restuccia’s goal, set a new program record with her 199th career point. Stack fired a one-timer past Sperry off a pass from Restuccia to give the Eagles a 2-0 lead.

While Stack’s record was still being announced over the PA system, the Terriers struck. Senior forward Holly Lorms drove hard to the net and drove a bouncing rebound past Schaus to cut the lead in half.

Lorms’s tally seemed to spark the Terriers, as the 16 shots they took in the third period were double the number they had in the first. But despite two power-play opportunities in the last 10 minutes, BU couldn’t beat Schaus, and time ran out on their strongest period before they could catch up with the Eagles.

“It was a game that kind of grew on me as it went along,” Durocher said. “Both teams played hard throughout the night and certainly there was some bumping and banging out there going on, it made for a bit of a physical contest, but there wasn’t an absurd amount of power plays so there was a lot of five-on-five hockey for people to see.

I was happy with the continued escalation of our play as the team went on, but for whatever reason, be it Molly Schaus or Boston College’s team defense in front of the net, a bounce here or there or maybe our sense of urgency was a whisker too late.”