Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due, and despite giving up six goals in two games against the University of Maine over the weekend, Northeastern women’s hockey goaltender Marisa Hourihan deserves a ton of credit and has been named The Northeastern News Player of the Week.
Facing a whopping 93 shots in two games, the Hanover native made an equally amazing 87 saves to help give the Huskies a fighting chance against the Hockey East foe Black Bears. That’s a .935 save percentage.
Even though the Huskies lost both games (3-1, 3-2,OT) this weekend, Hourihan was named the Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week for the second consecutive time.
The junior has been forced to make 40 or more saves in each of the last four games and seven games overall this season.
On Friday, Hourihan played extremely well, stopping all 20 shots she faced in the third period in a last ditch effort to keep NU in the game. The Huskies could not muster any offense and Maine prevailed, 3-1.
During Saturday’s game Hourihan stopped 34 shots through the first two periods before allowing a controversial goal by Maine’s Tristan Desmet with 25 seconds left on the clock to tie the game going into the third period.
After the two teams each notched a goal in the third period, the game moved to overtime, where Hourihan could not come up with her 88th save of the weekend as she surrendered the game winner to Sonia Corriveau.
For the season Hourihan has a 37.13 saves per game average, which is good for No. 1 in the nation as well as her 557 total saves, 100 more than her closest competition. With only 14 games played so far this season, Hourihan is already ninth on the single season saves list and is on pace to shatter Erika Silva’s mark of 858 saves, set during the 2000-01 season.
If Hourihan keeps up this pace she will finish with well over 1,000 saves, a feat that has not been accomplished in Division I in the past five years.
The Huskies are back in action Thursday night when they play host to the University of New Hampshire at 7 p.m. at Matthews Arena.
– by staff writer Max Lederman
