By Madeline Sattler, News Staff

The Huskies and Friars put up big numbers this weekend as the Northeastern women’s hockey team defeated Providence College 8-7 Sunday in the seventh annual Hockey East Skating Strides weekend.

Men’s and women’s teams throughout Hockey East wore commemorative jerseys last weekend to raise money for and draw awareness to breast cancer. Coca-Cola provided Northeastern’s black and pink uniforms that displayed the iconic breast cancer ribbon.

“This is a huge weekend across Hockey East,” sophomore forward Kendall Coyne said. “It’s great to be a part of and we’re just out here skating for a great cause.”

Coyne and senior forward Casey Pickett each had two goals for the Huskies, who held on in the end to defeat the Friars and pull ahead of them in the Women’s Hockey East Association standings. Northeastern is now tied for third place with the University of New Hampshire.

“The mentality going into it was let’s forget about the last few games we’ve had and start fresh from here,” Coyne said. “To get a win feels great.”

The Huskies jumped out to a 3-0 lead before the Friars could get one past junior goaltender Kelsey O’Sullivan, who made her first start in net this season.

Coyne notched the first score of the game on a power play chance and junior forward Brittany Esposito put the second goal in the net. Later, Coyne forced a turnover and sent a cross pass to Pickett, who was crashing the net, for the score.

“I liked how we came out pretty fast,” head coach Dave Flint said. “It’s a big win for us.”

Providence got on the board late in the first as junior forward Courtney Kukowski got one past O’Sullivan.

Pickett would answer 30 seconds later with her second goal of the game, but the Friars would score one more before the period came to a close.

It took less than five minutes for the scoring to resume in the second. Senior Kelly Wallace scored her eighth goal of the season and the Huskies were ahead 5-2. The Friars answered with a goal 38 seconds later.

“We’re not picking up sticks or clearing bodies out of the front, so our goalies are having trouble seeing the shots coming in,” Pickett said. “If we can get those bodies cleared out, I think that will help our goalies out a lot.”

Junior forward Katie MacSorley scored her sixth goal of the season off a shot that deflected off a Providence College stick. The Friars added their fourth goal of the day less than a minute later, and O’Sullivan was pulled for sophomore goalie Chloe Desjardins.

Each side added a power play goal before the middle frame came to an end and the Huskies headed to the locker room leading 7-5.

Senior forward Rachel Llanes scored what would be the game-winning goal early into the final period as she redirected a cross from junior defender Sonia St. Martin.

The Friars made things interesting as freshman defender Lexi Romanchuk and junior defender Rebecca Morse each scored on the power play.

“We kept letting them back in it and we’ve got to learn to put teams away,” Flint said. “We almost blew a three-goal lead and we just can’t do that.”

Earlier in the season, the Huskies had one of the nation’s top penalty killing units, but lately they have struggled when playing man-down.

The Huskies held on for the final minutes and kept the puck in the Friar zone not allowing Providence the opportunity to pull their goalie.

“You don’t really see 15 goals in one game,” Pickett said. “It was good that we put in eight pucks, that’s something that we’ve been struggling with, but obviously we need to clean it up a little bit in the D-zone.”

Sunday’s win was the 550th in program history and the 150th for Flint.

After the game the Huskies skated with and signed autographs for local youth hockey players. They also auctioned off their jerseys to raise money for breast cancer.

“It’s a really cool experience because cancer affects so many families and it’s nice that we can come together as a group,” Pickett said. “Kids look up to us and they see us supporting this cause, so maybe they’ll do something to help out as well.”

The season continues with two league games; today at the University of New Hampshire and at the University of Vermont on Sunday.