By: Kathryn Uggerholt, News Correspondent
Women’s hockey freshman forward Katie MacSorley extended her point streak to three games when she scored in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to No. 8 Boston College. She credits her success to her recent line change – she now plays with sophomore forward Rachel Llanes, who leads the team with 21 points, and senior forward Alyssa Wohlfeiler.
The Stratford, Ontario native is second on the team with 17 points and leads the team with 12 goals.
“I think it helps that I’ve been switched lines to play with Rachel and Wolfy now,” MacSorley said. “I think just playing with them makes me work harder because I know they expect more out of me.”
After the loss, NU falls to 14-9-4 on the season and 6-7-3 in Hockey East play.
MacSorley’s goal gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead 1:37 into the second period, but two unanswered goals from BC forward Kelli Stack later in the period erased the advantage. Stack leads the Hockey East with 28 goals on the season.
“I thought we played well,” Head Coach Dave Flint said. “We had a couple letdowns and with [BC forward] Kelli Stack on their team, she’ll make you pay. We outshot them and at times we outplayed them – we just came up on the short end.”
The Huskies’ loss was their third straight fall to the Eagles this season.
“We did the little things right against BC,” MacSorley said. “They’re such a better team and it showed.”
Senior goaltender Leah Sulyma stood tall between the pipes, making 22 saves in her second straight start on the weekend. The everyday starter, junior Florence Schelling, is out with an injury and Flint said he was very pleased with Sulyma’s performance. When asked about the injury, flint didn’t specify what it was.
“She did great,” he said. “It’s always nice and reassuring that we have two good goalies that are experienced and can step in and play.”
Friday night, Sulyma earned her third win of the season when the Huskies pulled out a 2-1 overtime win against the University of Vermont. In four starts, the senior goalie boasts a 3-1 record.
“It felt really good because I’ve been waiting for my chance all year,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that Florence [Schelling] is out, but at least our team knows that they can count on me.”
Flint said the overtime win, which snapped a three-game losing streak, was a big morale boost for the team.
“We showed a lot of heart Friday night at Vermont,” Flint said. “To come back and win it in overtime, that’s a big boost for us. We’ve been struggling to score goals lately and we lost three straight, so that was a good win for us.”
Neither team scored until the final period of play, but Northeastern was plenty busy on the penalty kill throughout the game. The Huskies fought off seven penalties, something they might not have been able to do a couple weeks back, according to Flint.
“Penalty killing is more or less an effort,” Flint said. “It’s [about] how hard they work and when you have a chance to get pucks out of the zone, you get them out of the zone.”
Vermont forward Chelsea Rapin ripped one past Sulyma, who made 30 saves on the night, 7:10 into the final period, to give the Catamounts the lead.
But senior forward Lori Antflick responded and tied the game with a little over two minutes remaining to keep Northeastern in the game, forcing overtime.
Wohlfeiler lit the lamp with just a 1:16 seconds left in overtime to get the win for the Huskies.
The Huskies have one more tuneup before the annual Beanpot opener against Harvard Feb. 8. The next match will be Sunday, Feb. 6, when Northeastern takes on the University of Connecticut.