With the halfway point of the season on the horizon, the No. 7 Boston University women’s hockey team is gearing up for their first contest against No. 10 Northeastern University tonight at Matthews Arena.
The Terriers (9-6-1, 4-1 Hockey East) return to Boston after dropping a pair of games to No. 3 Cornell University in Ithaca this past weekend.
“We’re coming off a tough weekend,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “We’re hoping to get our pride and our motivation up a bit and to get back to league action.”
BU lost 3-1 in the first game with junior forward Jill Cardella scoring the lone goal.
Cornell scored all three of its goals on power plays and snapped the Terriers’ three-game win streak in the process.
Sophomore goaltender Kerrin Sperry made 26 saves against Cornell, which possess the second-best power play in the nation.
In their second matchup, the Terriers lost 7-1. This time the lone goal came on a power-play tally from senior defenseman Tara Watchorn.
The goal was Watchorn’s second of the season.
Although the Big Red scored their first goal in the first period, things became progressively worse for the Terriers when Cornell began a stream of three goals in the second frame.
Sperry made 12 saves while giving up five goals in 40:12 and was replaced by classmate Braly Hiller, who made seven saves and gave up the remaining two tallies during the rest of the game.
It was the Terriers’ last non-conference game until the Beanpot on Jan. 31.
Senior captain Jenn Wakefield leads BU offensively with 10 goals and 10 assists.
Wakefield is the only Terrier to have scored in every contest against the Huskies last season. She is ranked first in Hockey East for scoring and for power-play goals with a team-high of five.
Fellow forward junior Isabel Menard follows the Pickering, Ontario native with 15 points this season.
Freshman forward Kayla Tutino is next on the list with 14 points.
The Huskies (10-4, 5-2 Hockey East) also fell last weekend in a 4-3 overtime loss to Dartmouth College.
The Huskies kept the game alive with goals from junior captain Casey Pickett, who is the team’s leading scorer, and freshman Kendall Coyne.
Coyne was voted Hockey East Ambitions Rookie of the Week for the second time in her career this week.
Northeastern’s defense is ranked eighth in the nation in large part thanks to goalkeeper Florence Schelling. Schelling has four shutouts this season and has all nine wins for the Huskies.
“[Schelling’s] a special goalie and she plays real big out there,” Durocher said. “When you watch her she’s got real good hands and over the years she’s become the type of kid who can control a game by herself.”
The Huskies are also ranked 10th in the nation offensively due in large part to Pickett, who has scored ten goals thus far this season. Pickett also leads the country in shorthanded goals, with BU’s Tutino a close second.
Coyne is second on Northeastern’s roster offensively with eight goals and nine assists.
Coyne played against Wakefield in the Four Nations Cup in Sweden, beating Wakefield and the Canadians as a member of the United States team for the gold medal.
“[Northeastern’s] a team that has some quality forwards and one of the most dynamic kids in Kendall Coyne,” Durocher said.
Last season, the Terriers had an overall record of 3-1-1 against their canine counterparts, with their only loss coming at the Hockey East semifinal. Wakefield scored both goals in the 4-2 loss. In their matchups last season, the Terriers outscored the Huskies 19-9.
“I think going into a Hockey East game, you’re going into another one of those four point games, it’s real important,” Durocher said. “I think our kids will get excied for that. I think they’ll try and bounce back from an off weekend up at Cornell and certainly get after a Northeastern team and keep moving up the ladder in Hockey East.”
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