Women’s hockey suffers loss to Boston College 7–1

Having beaten No. 8 Boston College at BC 4–2 earlier in the season, the No. 3 Boston University women’s hockey team failed to repeat its success, losing at Walter Brown Arena 7–1 Wednesday night.

“It was a fantastic game by Boston College,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “Maybe the best one I’ve seen in a long time. Their readiness, attention to detail and [competitiveness] was at a different level than ours.”

The Eagles (3–3–0, 2–2–0 Hockey East) found their way onto the board 4:47 into the first period when junior Taylor Wasylk slipped the puck into the net.

Early in the start of the second period, BC sophomore forward Alex Carpenter continued the Eagles’ scoring when she tallied a shorthanded goal. Then, 4:23 later, Carpenter’s classmate Emily Field took advantage of BU’s penalty kill when she scored a power-play goal.

“Obviously [our] special teams weren’t good tonight. [BC] made two good plays on sort of back-door type of goals,” Durocher said. “One was a true back door play. The other one was a little bit of a rebound back door play.

“I saw two people relax on the shorthanded goal, and we can’t do that. We’ve got to sense imminent danger. We’ve got to be playing at the pace they’re playing. If that means they’re going to clear the zone once in a while, fine, but if it means they’re going to clear the zone and end up with a breakaway because we’re hoping we keep it in, shame on us.”

At 10:43 into the second period, Carpenter scored her second goal of the evening and BC’s third goal of the second period, advancing a strong gap between it and the Terriers. At the end of the second period, BU (7–2–0, 3–1–0 Hockey East) responded. Junior co-captain Marie Philip-Poulin picked up a rebound and put BU on the board.

However, BU did not build off that goal and BC kept its same pace going into the third. Recording her first career hat-trick, Carpenter scored her final goal of the game 3:03 into the third. Then, in a fight for the puck at BU’s net, BC freshman Meghan Grieves increased the Eagles lead 6–1.

“Certainly they made some bounces. They were driving that net on the fourth goal that went in off the shin pad or pant leg,” Durocher said. “They were at the net, around the net. They earned an awful lot, and we didn’t exactly have the fight that we needed to have.”

In response to two penalties on Poulin and junior forward Louise Warren, Durocher called a timeout.

“I didn’t want any people who were playing for themselves to be taking liberties and being tough guys out there. That’s not the time to be a tough guy. It’s the other 55 minutes of the game,” Durocher said. “If we’re going to get penalties, I want to make sure our sticks are down, and we’re playing hard, but not catching people from behind or retaliation type of penalties. That’s not what we want. I want them playing for the front of the jersey.”

Minutes after the timeout, junior goaltender Kerrin Sperry suffered a collision with her own teammate and hit the ice. After a visit from the trainer, Sperry was back up, with applause from the stands, but within seconds, she gave up her seventh and final goal of the game. In response, Durocher had senior goaltender Alissa Fromkin enter the game in relief.

“I’d have a hard time faulting Sperry for the ones that went in. She might have liked to control a rebound or two a bit better, but we sort of left her out to dry for the most part,” Durocher said. “We were giving breakaways. That deflection off the shin pad. A couple backboard goals. Those were ones that make it awful tough for a goalie to bail you out.”

BU will have a chance to rebound from Wednesday’s loss on Saturday, when it travels to Conte Forum again to face the Eagles again.

“We’re going to have to discuss a couple things maybe technically, but we’re going to have to bring our own conviction, our own pride and our own energy to the place and not wonder to see what’s going to happen,” Durocher said. “We’ve got to take it to them when we go back there and put the pressure back on them.”