Women’s hockey concludes uneven weekend set against St. Cloud State, Minnesota

With just two full-roster practices under its belt, the No. 4/6 Boston University women’s hockey team headed out west to take on a pair of formidable opponents in Minnesota.

The Terriers’ (1-1) first game, a 5-2 victory over St. Cloud State University (0-2) Friday night was a complete reverse on the scoreboard from Saturday’s 5-2 loss to No. 1 University of Minnesota (2-0), but the stat sheets told a bigger story.

Though both games were decided by a couple of three goal margins, the contests were closer than the goal count indicated. BU was even with St. Cloud until the last five minutes of the game, when the Terriers potted three goals in as many minutes to take the win.

On Saturday, despite allowing four goals in the second period that ultimately spelled its loss, BU recorded just as many shots as Minnesota, 28-28 in the contest.

“I felt like [Friday] night certainly, we came out of the gate in a situation where we could have been up two or three goals, but we were only up one,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “St. Cloud gave us everything we could handle, so you know, five minutes left in the game and we get three goals, that made it look like it was a one-sided game. It really wasn’t.”

As for Saturday, Durocher thought the Terriers fared well in the first and third periods, but their inability to convert on the power play, even with a minute and a half long 5-on-3 opportunity, as well as some mental mistakes that led to goals, were the biggest factors that led to their first loss of the season.

“The biggest thing was, and don’t get me wrong, Minnesota made some great plays on the power play, they took advantage, but the biggest thing was mentally, we were somewhat weak in the penalty, the bad line changes,” Durocher said. “Those two things are well within our control.”

Minnesota converted on two of its three power-play chances, sending shots past freshman goaltender Erin O’Neil, but Durocher doesn’t think it was positional mistakes that did the Terriers in. Rather, it was Minnesota’s adeptness at finding the open player and BU’s trouble with keeping the game within reach after the Golden Gophers scored three goals in just over two minutes.

“We gotta be a little mentally stronger than that,” Durocher said. “When they get one goal and make it 2-1, you gotta sorta shut the blockers off and not let them get on a run, but we didn’t do that.”

One thing both games had in common was the Terriers’ second-period play. Minnesota scored four of its five goals in the second frame while the Huskies managed to put one past sophomore goaltender Victoria Hanson during the second stanza of Friday’s tilt.

“We’ve all gotta do it for 60 minutes. If you are happy playing 45 good minutes, and in 15 minutes you give up four goals, well then we’re gonna have our problems being an elite team,” Durocher said. “We certainly looked like we could play with [Minnesota], and that’s a good sign…but you’ve gotta stay strong, and you can’t let one goal become three or four.”

For a squad that has only practiced together as a full team twice, the season looks promising for the Terriers. Freshman forwards Victoria Bach and Rebecca Leslie both netted their first collegiate goals over the weekend and registered one and three points, respectively, while sophomore forward Maddie Elia had a goal and three assists for a team-high four points over both tilts. Junior forward Sarah Lefort and junior wing Rebecca Russo each notched three points with a goal and a pair of assists as well.

“We’ll try to get a little more practice with most of our special teams and our lines because, again, we only had two days of practice with our whole team there. That’s not even enough time to get to know people’s names sometimes, let alone how they play,” Durocher said.

“Plenty of good things to look at. But our determination and our mental toughness, we gotta make sure we’re a little better there.”