Beasts of the East

When it ran up against No. 1 University of Wisconsin in the national championship, the Boston University women’s hockey team saw a breakout year come to a frustrating end with a 4-1 loss. But after advancing a little farther in the postseason every year – from their first Hockey East playoff win in 2009 to their first conference title in 2010, to their first two NCAA tournament wins this year – the Terriers’ meteoric rise has propelled them into the discussion of the best teams in the nation.

While more and more colleges in the Northeast and upper Midwest are establishing women’s hockey programs, the national scene has long been dominated by Wisconsin, University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota-Duluth – the only teams to ever win national championships.

BU became the first Hockey East team ever to play in the Frozen Four this year, and although it couldn’t beat the Badgers, it made a statement with eight goals in its first two games of the tournament, yet another impressive run to cap off a year of milestones.

Just in case there was any doubt about the Terriers’ new recruits – a group that included a pair of Olympic gold medalists and a one-time Patty Kazmaier Award nominee – at the start of the year, they put up six of the team’s 10 goals in the first weekend of the season against University of North Dakota and hardly cooled off all year.

After transferring to BU from rival University of New Hampshire, junior forward Jenn Wakefield finished the year with 32 goals and 22 assists in 34 games, ranking ninth in the nation with 1.59 points per game. Freshman forward Marie-Philip Poulin, the star of Canada’s 2010 Olympic gold medal victory, averaged 1.68 points but missed 10 games between a fractured hand and playing for Team Canada in the Four Nations Cup.

Wakefield, Poulin and graduate student defenseman Catherine Ward – another Canadian Olympic team member – made the most noise, but freshman forward Louise Warren and defenseman Kaleigh Fratkin also adjusted well to their first year of college play. Warren finished the year at a plus-13 with five goals and five assists, including a goal in her debut against North Dakota on Oct. 2.

In switching back and forth between the blue line and the first offensive line when Poulin was injured, Fratkin put up 10 points and blocked 23 shots, good for third on the team after her defensive partner, junior Kasey Boucher, and Ward, who had 36 and 38, respectively.

“With Louise Warren up front and Kaleigh Fratkin on the blue line, we had some very, very high-profile players at both positions,” Durocher said, pointing out that the presence of Poulin, Wakefield and Ward drew attention away from the other newcomers.

“But Louise being a wing and playing here in the prep schools, and Kaleigh being a two-time under-18 player [for the Canadian national team], they were pretty decorated before they were trying to come here. They made real nice contributions, and I think sort of a redshirt freshman type in Taylor Holze – she had a real nice year playing for us after being injured all last year.”

Poulin was as impressive as advertised and Fratkin and Warren made key contributions throughout the year, but the most remarkable story out of the freshman class was goalie Kerrin Sperry’s. Sperry and sophomore goalie Alissa Fromkin shared time in the net early in the year, alternating games, but by the end of 2010, Sperry had all but established herself not only as the Terriers’ starter but as one of the top goalies in Hockey East – a conference stacked with netminders like Boston College’s Molly Schaus and Northeastern University’s Florence Schelling, who have both played for their national teams in the Olympics.

“I think ultimately the game [when Sperry won the starting role] was probably the UNH weekend [Feb. 3-5],” Durocher said. “We had a pretty good run through the year looking at both goaltenders, figuring things out, and then it was the third time, I remember, when Kerrin Sperry stepped up and played a solid game – we had lost a game and she came back and got us a win.

“We were also, numbers-wise, into the final six, seven, eight games, and you’d think that’s enough time for one goalie to sharpen it up and be ready to go [in] back to back [games]. I was happy with the way both goalies played all year and Kerrin just really separated herself statistically. That’s not a problem with the way Alissa Fromkin played, just a compliment to Kerrin Sperry.”

In that decisive weekend against UNH, Fromkin was in net for the Terriers on a Thursday night as they suffered their first loss since Nov. 20. That was the end of an 11-game winning streak that had seen BU defeat everyone from a struggling Princeton University team to a then-No. 6 BC team, winning consistently at home and on the road. The run began with a 1-0 win over BC in Chestnut Hill, and the Terriers would defeat their Comm. Ave rivals again on Jan. 15, 4-0, to win the season series.

During those 11 games, Sperry recorded four shutouts and Fromkin had one, and the offense, led by its prolific newcomers as well as returning scorers like seniors Jillian Kirchner and Holly Lorms, averaged 4.54 goals per game. After the streak-busting loss to UNH, BU bounced back with a 3-1 win over the Wildcats two days later in front of Sperry.

Although BC was the other Boston-area team in the national rankings all year, it was Northeastern that gave the Terriers fits down the stretch. On Feb. 11, BU squandered a 3-0 lead at home against the Huskies and needed a late shorthanded goal from senior wing Lauren Cherewyk to win 4-3. They beat the Huskies 5-1 the next day and then tied them, 3-3, two days later in the consolation game of the Beanpot.

With far more than local bragging rights on the line, the Terriers and Huskies met for the fourth time in the Hockey East semifinals on March 5. BU played one of its most dominant first periods of the year, but 25 mostly high-quality shots in the first frame yielded just one goal against Schelling, who eventually made 44 saves to carry Northeastern to a stunning upset victory.

“The thing that was frustrating with Northeastern in a couple situations was that we’d given up leads,” Durocher said. “I think everybody’s got to realize Northeastern’s made a real good run here the last couple years, making a highly competitive run, and was on the bubble there for a good part of the year to be a tournament team. We’re going to have to get used to them being around and being a prominent team.”

A week later, the Terriers bounced back as if the Hockey East upset had never happened, beating No. 6 Mercyhurst College 4-2 in the first NCAA tournament game they had ever hosted. After knocking out the Lakers – who had eliminated them in the first round last year as a No. 1 seed, when BU was seeded eighth – they turned in a surprisingly dominant performance against No. 2 Cornell University in the Frozen Four to advance to the national championship.

Against Cornell in Erie, Pa., Kirchner scored the game-winner and junior forward Jenelle Kohanchuk teamed up with Wakefield to give BU a 3-1 lead just 50 seconds later. When Wisconsin beat BC in the other semifinal, 3-2, they set up a battle between the Eastern upstarts and the Midwestern old guard in the final game of the season.

The Badgers dominated from the opening faceoff onward, and the fact that the score was just 2-1 in Wisconsin’s favor with five minutes left to play was a testament to Sperry and to the tenacity of the defenders in front of her, who blocked 23 shots.

It was also an indication that, in just its sixth year of existence, Durocher’s team is ready to hang with the best teams in the country. As Poulin, Sperry and the rest of the team’s young core progress, they’ll look to do more than just keep up with teams like Wisconsin next year.

“I think overall the significant difference is they’ve got three teams that represent that league really well and have won all the championships, and until we can start knocking those teams out they’re still going to be the kingpin as a league,” Durocher said of Wisconsin’s conference, the WCHA, where Minnesota and Minnesota-Duluth also play.

“I think we’re going to continue to bring in top players and that’s a good sign, and we measure ourselves against the WCHA but we also want to make sure we’re as good as the ECAC. This year I think we went past that, but you can’t hang your hat on today. You’ve got to keep building.”