After winning three straight games, the No. 5 Boston University women’s hockey team faltered over the weekend when the No. 3 team from Cornell University swept the Terriers (9-6-1) in a two-game series in Ithaca, N.Y.
“I think that we obviously ran into a team that, on paper and now live and in-person, sure seems like a top-four team, if not a top-two or maybe the best team,” said BU coach Brian Durocher.
“They’re a very talented group that brings out three lines of real top players, very assertive, aggressive defensemen and a goalie that has proven herself in college hockey.”
The teams kicked off the series Friday night, when, despite BU possessing one of the strongest penalty kills in its conference, the Terriers could not overcome Cornell’s power play that was ranked the second-best in the nation.
Cornell (9-1-0) showed its potency on the power play by scoring three goals with the player advantage.
The Big Red opened up the scoring in the first frame after senior captain Jenn Wakefield was sent to the box for tripping at 12:51. A little more than 30 seconds into the power play, Cornell scored on forward Emily Fulton’s fifth goal of the season.
Then, just more than three minutes into the second period, redshirt freshman defenseman Caroline Campbell was charged with hooking. This time it took the Big Red more than a minute to convert the advantage into a goal when forward Rebecca Johnston potted her first tally of the game.
BU attempted a comeback halfway through the second frame when junior forward Jill Cardella picked up the puck in front of Cornell’s net and slipped it past Cornell goaltender Amanda Mazzotta to bring the Terriers within one at 10:36.
The Big Red tacked on an insurance goal, however, a mere 22 seconds into the third frame on a 5-on-3 advantage where Johnston picked up her second goal of the game, her seventh on the year.
Neither team scored for the rest of the game, which ended in a 3-1 Cornell victory.
“I think [Cornell] just did a real good job,” Durocher said of the Big Red’s power play. “All five people move around pretty well and we’ve got to give them an awful lot of credit for being very talented and very successful on that power play.
“We met our match I guess they would say.”
On Saturday, the Terriers opened play with what Durocher considered the team’s best period of the weekend.
While Cornell did take the lead halfway through the first period on a goal by defenseman Laura Fortino, the shots during the frame were relatively even. Cornell outshot BU 6-5.
However, during the second period, the Big Red opened the door to what would become a landslide victory. Cornell scored three unanswered goals during the frame to take a 4-0 lead over the Terriers.
The second period started off with Cornell defenseman Amanda Young notching her first goal of the season. She was followed by forward Jillian Saulnier’s goal at the 12-minute mark.
Defenseman Hayleigh Cudmore rounded out the scoring for the period when she notched a power play tally with just more than six minutes left to play in the frame.
Cornell would continue its offensive barrage just 12 seconds into the third period when forward Catherine White scored her seventh goal of the season.
After sophomore netminder Kerrin Sperry gave up five goals in a little more than 40 minutes of play, Durocher removed her from the game and replaced her with sophomore goaltender Braly Hiller who gave up the final two goals.
“Kerrin worked real hard,” Durocher said. “She was fighting right till the end but they had some pucks that they got in [Saturday] that are not going to be stopped.
“We didn’t protect her as well as we could have.”
Hiller didn’t fare much better, though she did last more than 13 minutes before allowing a goal. Forward Brianne Jenner gave Cornell its sixth goal before BU’s senior defenseman Tara Watchorn put the Terriers on the board with a power play goal 14:26 into the period.
Watchorn took a pass from Wakefield to score her second goal and power play tally of the season.
Cornell’s Saulnier added her second goal of the game with just more than three minutes left to play to account for the final score of 7-1.
While the Terriers struggled this weekend, Durocher said he believed that the team will take what it learned from its nonconference schedule and use it to prevail during the remaining Hockey East games.
“We’ve certainly got to try to put this behind us,” Durocher said. “[We’ll] take some lessons from the great competition we’ve faced in the non-league . . . hopefully you learn from that and you’re used to playing against the high level. Now what we’ve got to do is try to ride the good start we’ve had [in Hockey East] and see if we can build on that.”
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