For the three senior roommates who have been part of the No. 3 Boston University women’s hockey team for four years, Friday’s game against Northeastern University could hardly have been scripted better.
Forwards Jillian Kirchner and Holly Lorms both had multi-point games, and Lauren Cherewyk scored the game-winning goal on Senior Night in front of a season-high 1,005 fans at Walter Brown Arena. Graduate student defenseman Catherine Ward, who is in her first and final year with the program, added two assists.
Each of the graduating players met with her parents at center ice in a pregame ceremony.
“We’ve been together now for four years and our families have become close, but we’ve become a part of each other’s families,” Lorms said. “To do that with them and with [Ward] too, to have her out there, it’s been an honor and a true blessing for all of us.”
The stands behind the BU bench were mostly full for the first time since the team’s home opener on Oct. 15, and the vocal crowd got to see the home team take a commanding 3-0 lead by the middle of the second period. Lorms kicked off what would be a three-goal, four-point weekend for her by picking off a Northeastern breakout pass and firing the puck past goalie Leah Sulyma.
Junior forward Jenn Wakefield and freshman defenseman-turned-forward Kaleigh Fratkin scored to put BU up 3-0 by 9:09 of the second, and Kirchner recorded an assist for her 100th career point on Fratkin’s goal. But three unanswered Northeastern goals, the last of which came three minutes into the third period, tied the game and set the stage for Cherewyk’s most visible moment of her senior year so far.
After putting up 12 goals and 17 assists in her junior season, Cherewyk had just one goal this year going into Friday’s game. Although she has been a consistent part of a Terrier penalty kill that ranks second in the nation with a 94.2 percent success rate, she hasn’t been finding the net with the same regularity she has throughout her career.
But when junior forward Jenelle Kohanchuk went to the box for a cross-check just over five minutes into the period, the generally aggressive Terrier penalty kill went on the attack. After BU set up in the Northeastern zone, looking almost as if they were on a power play instead, Ward found Cherewyk open at the bottom of the left circle, and Cherewyk’s quick wrist shot beat Sulyma to give BU the lead and ultimately win the game.
All three seniors said the crowd heightened the excitement of an already important game.
“It was so much fun,” Kirchner said. “Right when you got on the ice, whether you had legs or didn’t have legs, once you looked at the stands, you knew you were going to fly.”
“It created a great atmosphere, and if we could get this many fans every game we’d love it,” Cherewyk said.
Saturday’s game at Northeastern wasn’t as well-attended, but was no less successful for the Terriers and their senior class. Lorms started off the scoring at 4:10 of the first period and also scored BU’s third goal, just over a minute into the third period, for her 12th tally of the year.
Lorms has set personal highs this year in goals and assists (nine), and has been making the most of the increased ice time she’s seeing in the absence of freshman forward and second-leading scorer Marie Philip-Poulin, who has now missed three games with a fractured hand. Ward picked up another assist on Lorms’s second goal, tying her with Poulin for the team lead with 22 on the year.
“We’re lucky to have those four, and they’re true ambassadors for Boston University,” said BU coach Brian Durocher of the graduating class.
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