The Boston University women’s hockey team swept Merrimack College in a home-and-home series this weekend. With the wins, the Terriers (7-5-1, 6-5 Hockey East) earned their first sweep of the season and extended the Warriors’ (4-10-1, 2-7 Hockey East) losing streak to six games.
Junior forward Rebecca Leslie’s first career hat trick contributed to BU’s 7-3 victory at Merrimack on Friday. Senior goalkeeper Victoria Hanson’s 2-0 shutout of the Warriors on Saturday afternoon at Agganis Arena highlighted the solid weekend effort.
On Friday night, Merrimack struck first on a power-play goal from sophomore Paige Sorensen. Just over a minute later, BU freshman forward Deziray De Sousa tied it up with her second goal of the season.
Just 41 seconds into the second period, graduate student forward Mary Parker put the Terriers up 2-1, but Merrimack’s young side responded with a goal from sophomore Felila Manu toward the end of the period.
The teams went into the final frame deadlocked at two, but three major milestones for BU in the third period secured the victory.
At the 2:17 mark, freshman defender Breanna Scarpaci sent the game-winner past Merrimack goaltender Samantha Ridgewell to notch her first collegiate goal. Less than halfway through the period, junior forward Victoria Bach made it 4-2 to become just the 10th Terrier ever to notch 100 points.
Leslie put together her career night by netting BU’s final three goals. Her first score was a backhand feed from Elia at the 9:02 mark. The second came four minutes later on a power-play opportunity, and she would add an empty-netter in the final minutes to notch the hat trick.
Playing for the first time since Oct. 25, Hanson faced 19 shots and only surrendered three goals.
“Obviously having a couple weeks off it’s hard to get back into it,” Hanson said, “but I’m just trying to stay as focused as possible.”
The first period of Saturday’s home contest for the Terriers was relatively uneventful despite the fact that they outshot the Warriors 14-6.
BU got the scoring going 14 minutes into the second period thanks to the skill of Parker. She moved the puck around an opposing player while making her way to the middle of the circle. With a flick of her wrist, the puck flew into the net for her team-leading 11th goal of the year.
“I remember seeing [sophomore defenseman] Connor [Galway] with the puck at the point so I tried to pop out a little bit and be in a good position to shoot,” Parker said. “She passed it down and I just tried to step to the middle and put my stick in a position to get a shot onto the net.”
Merrimack’s defenders thwarted the Terrier’s efforts to extend the lead, though. Léa-Kristine Demers got the start in net on Saturday for the Warriors, and made 39 saves.
The Warriors couldn’t get past the Terriers’ defense through the remainder of the second period, and thus the Terriers led 1-0 heading into the final frame.
With just under six minutes to go, the puck bobbled in front of the net in heavy traffic. Warriors players pushed it against the oft-centered Hanson. The puck ended up behind her as she faced the unguarded net, but the Warriors couldn’t score.
“I give credit to Merrimack,” BU head coach Brian Durocher said. “They put a rush on at the end of the game, got some chances. I don’t think it was because we were playing poorly. They just got some pep in their step.”
After a few nail-biting minutes, sophomore forward Sammy Davis cleared the puck and scored an empty-netter with 1:35 remaining to seal the 2-0 victory.
Saturday was the Terriers’ first regular season shutout since February and Durocher said he is proud of his team’s effort at Agganis.
“We’ve had a little bit of a hard time defending and keeping people off the scoreboard,” Durocher said. “Today it was a combination of all the skaters playing well and defending hard.”
