By Madeline Sattler, News Staff
The women’s hockey team suffered two tough losses this weekend at the hands of Women’s Hockey East Association rival, Boston College.
Powered by four first period goals on Friday evening, the Eagles went on to win the game 6-4 despite a comeback bid by the Huskies. On Sunday, the Huskies tied the game at three before Eagle junior forward Melissa Bizzari scored with 39 seconds left in regulation to seal the victory for Boston College.
“Obviously not the outcomes that we wanted, but there are a lot of positives,” senior forward Casey Pickett said.
The Huskies have dropped all three games this season against ranked teams and are currently in fourth place in the WHEA.
“We’ve got to realize against better teams like that you can’t turn it on and off,” head coach David Flint said.
In Game 2 of the home-and-home series, both teams came out ready to play. They traded shots back and forth before Husky sophomore Ann Doherty was sent to the box for tripping.
The Eagles would capitalize, opening up the scoring with a power play goal by sophomore forward Alex Carpenter. The Eagles added another goal in the first before junior forward Claire Santostefano put Northeastern on the board.
“We didn’t play terrible in the first, but they took advantage of the little things that we messed up on,” Pickett said.
Neither team would put the puck in the net although the Eagles put up 12 shots on goal compared to Northeastern’s four in the second stanza.
Pickett scored in the third period to tie the game up. Sophomore forward Kendall Coyne and Doherty were awarded the assist.
Later in the frame freshman forward Paige Savage gave Northeastern a lead on a power play goal. Senior forward Rachel Llanes sent the puck to Coyne who crossed it to Savage to put the shot on goal.
“We’re not going down easy,” Llanes said. “We don’t give up and we just keep going.”
The lead was short-lived as Bizzari scored the Eagles’ third goal just 22 seconds later.
Bizzari later became the hero of the game, scoring the game-winning goal with 39 seconds to play and the Eagles won 4-3.
“I like the fact that we didn’t give up and we competed right down to the end of the game,” Flint said.
Sunday’s loss was the second of the weekend for the Huskies. Friday night the Eagles came to Matthews Arena and quieted the Huskies with four goals in the opening frame.
“Obviously we came out slow,” Flint said. “We were standing around a lot in our own end and not playing hard in the d-zone.”
With 1:20 to go in the first period, senior forward Kelly Wallace scored her fourth goal in four games to put Northeastern on the board.
“I go hard to the net and good things happen when you go to the net,” Wallace said.
Each team scored two goals in the second period with Pickett and Llanes putting the puck in the net for Northeastern.
Pickett scored the Huskies’ final goal, but the Huskies would lose 6-4. Pickett now has 13 goals on the season.
Northeastern will have a break from Hockey East play as they take on Team Russia in an exhibition match on Saturday at Matthews Arena. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.
