In its fourth straight road contest, the Boston University’s women’s hockey team suffered a 6-2 defeat at the hands of Northeastern University on Tuesday night at Matthews Arena.
Northeastern (4-2-1, 1-0 Hockey East) didn’t waste any time, as just under five minutes into the game, Husky forward Shelby Herrington opened the scoring.
The Terriers were quick to respond, though, as just three minutes later, freshman forward Natasza Tarnowski knotted the score at one with her second goal of the season. Tarnowski was assisted by senior forward Samantha Sutherland and freshman forward Deziray De Sousa, who recorded her first collegiate point on the play.
The intensity heightened in the second period, as Herrington scored her second of the night at the 2:02 mark following a power-play opportunity.
Northeastern’s prolific offense, which has scored 3.3 goals per game in the early going, came to play on Tuesday night. The line pairing of Herrington and sophomore Kasidy Anderson performed especially well.
The Huskies would score twice more in the period to take a commanding lead into the third frame.
“We were good but they got some good goals by bodies flying at the net, timely screen shots, and knocking it away from us,” BU head coach Brian Durocher said. “Ultimately we couldn’t match that tonight.”
There were some positives for the Terriers, namely graduate student forward Mary Parker. The transfer, who comes to BU following 104 games at Harvard University, beat Husky goaltender Brittany Bugalski to cut the lead to two. She was assisted by junior forwards Nina Rodgers and Victoria Bach on the Terriers’ final goal of the night.
The score also marked Parker’s 100th point of her collegiate career.
“It was nice to get her one of those goals around the net and in the third period she had some other real good chances,” Durocher said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get that one goal that would potentially change the complexion of the game.”
In the final period, the Terriers had some solid power-play chances and held possession of the puck, but couldn’t capitalize.
O’Neil played well on Tuesday night, and finished the contest with 32 saves, which brought her save percentage to 0.901. Despite the effort, forward Denisa Krizova scored at the 12:25 mark in the frame to put Northeastern up 5-2.
“I think she had a little trouble finding pucks and that’s in partial because they went to the net hard with bodies,” Durocher said. “Some nights your goalie is not going to get a great look at it and tonight was one of those nights where they had some good shots when the screen was created.”
The Huskies would add an empty-netter to finish off the victory, but BU doesn’t have to wait too long to get another crack at its rival. The Terriers are back in action against Northeastern next Tuesday at Walter Brown Arena, where Durocher said he hopes his team’s physicality will manifest itself more fully.
“We can’t get beat physically the way we did today,” Durocher said. “We had puck possession in their end and we had opportunities but we only got two pucks in the net and we couldn’t change the complexion of the game or get ourselves a bit of momentum.”
