The No. 6 Boston University women’s ice hockey team split its weekend series at the University of Maine, shutting the Black Bears out 3-0 Friday afternoon before losing 4-2 on Saturday.
The Terriers (4-2, 1-1 Hockey East ) started off the road swing strong with a combined shutout effort from sophomore goaltender Victoria Hanson and freshman goaltender Erin O’Neil . BU’s defense was able to hold Maine (3-5-1, 2-1 Hockey East) to 24 shots total during Friday’s tilt and kept them off the score sheet entirely, marking the Black Bears’ third straight contest without a goal .
Senior captain Marie-Philip Poulin got the Terriers’ game started just 28 seconds into the middle frame when she put the puck past goalie Meghann Treacy to give BU a 1-0 lead. Junior winger Sarah Lefort and senior defenseman Shannon Doyle earned assists on the tally, their sixth and third of the season, respectively.
Freshman center Victoria Bach bolstered the Terrier lead at 12:54 in the second with a goal of her own, assisted by junior defenseman Lillian Ribeirinha-Braga , to put her team up 2-0. Lefort would finish up the scoring with 8:30 gone in the third period on an unassisted effort.
Five minutes later though, a collision in front of the net forced Hanson to exit the game with an upper-body injury that BU coach Brian Durocher and his staff are expected to know more about in the coming days. O’Neil took her place and kept out all four shots that she faced to preserve the shutout.
“I think we stayed with it to the end,” Durocher said. “There were sequences and there were segments in the game where we played very, very well, and then there were a couple segments where we got lackadaisical, but I think definitely taking care of business and finding a way to not let them score a goal, and that’s a combination of Victoria and Erin both doing a good job in net.”
On Saturday, BU also opened the scoring. Senior wing Rebecca Russo , with the help of freshman linemate Rebecca Leslie , potted her second goal of the season 3:55 into the first period.
The Black Bears would then score three consecutive goals. Defenseman Kelsey MacSorely tied the game at one at 5:56 into the second frame, and a pair of quick goals in the third period from forwards Emilie Brigham and Audra Richards gave Maine a lead BU would not be able to erase.
Richards added an empty netter with 57 seconds left while the Terriers scored their second goal of the game with two seconds remaining on the clock, as senior forward Sarah Bayersdorfer notched her first of the season with assists from Doyle and sophomore forward Natalie Flynn.
Durocher was more pleased with his team’s defensive and offensive effort on Friday than Saturday, mentioning that it was a couple bad bounces that made the biggest difference in the second game.
“I really was honestly very impressed with the opponent,” Durocher said. “They played with a lot of energy … I think they’re fighting it to score goals, and I was a little bit afraid that if they got one, they’d get a few, and certainly that ended up being the case yesterday.
“We probably did a little bit better job defensively the first day, but [Saturday] got away from us just a little bit, and they took advantage so I give them credit.”
Even with the loss on Saturday, the Terriers fired 43 shots on net and launched a total of 73 at the Maine net over the course of the weekend.
“It was 50 something minutes where we could have got a second goal, and we would have put ourselves in pretty good shape, but the second goal of the game was scored by them to tie it, and then they get the second goal where it’s either team, and they turned out to be the winner,” Durocher said.
Nice girl, tries hard, loves the game. Judy covers men's hockey for The Daily Free Press. When she's not writing, she's quoting "Miracle" in conversations and living in a constant in a state of wonder at everything Patrice Bergeron has ever done. Follow her on Twitter at @judylee_c
