By Maddie Sattler, News Staff
The Northeastern women’s ice hockey team suffered a tough weekend loss to crosstown rival Boston College, to drop to 2-3-1 in Hockey East.
Special teams were the key for the Eagles, who scored three times on the power play and once with a man-down to defeat the Huskies 6-1.
“The difference in the game was special teams,” head coach Dave Flint said. “The score wasn’t indicative of our performance.”
The first period saw a lot of back and forth action before Eagles’ junior forward Emily Field put BC on the board with a short-handed score.
The Huskies got on the board two minutes later. Freshman forward Hayley Scamurra took the puck in the defensive zone and carried it down the ice, where she fired a shot that bounced off Eagles’ goalie, graduate student Corinne Boyles. Redshirt senior forward Brittany Esposito crashed the net and put the rebound in the back of the net to tie up the game.
“[Esposito] played well in her first game back,” Flint said. “She logged a lot of minutes on Sunday, and we needed that.”
This was the first game of the season for Esposito, who had 10 goals and 17 assists for the Huskies last season. The assist was the third assist for Scamurra in the last two games.
The Eagles got on the board once more before the opening frame ended. But the Huskies did have the offense going with 11 of their shots on goal in the first period.
Both teams had chances in the second period, but it was BC who cashed in on a power play chance with 4:45 to go in the period.
The Eagles blew the game open in the third frame scoring three times including twice on the power play before the game was over.
“You take away their special teams’ goals and it’s a 2-1 game,” Flint said. “At times I thought we played really well, but we didn’t cash in on our power play chances.”
Despite outshooting the Eagles 31 to 24, the Huskies weren’t able to follow through on their offensive chances.
“We need to be more consistent,” Flint said. “I told the girls, ‘You need to barrel down in front of the net.’”
Junior goalie Chloe Desjardins came up with 14 saves and freshman goalie Sarah Foss had four. Junior defender Ann Doherty also saw her first action since Jan. 3. The Illinois native has been recovering from an injury.
“We spotter [Doherty] in some shifts,” Flint said. “We’ll get her in more consistently next weekend.”
The Huskies head to Colorado this weekend for two tough games. They’ll take on the number two ranked Wisconsin Badgers Friday before a matchup against St. Cloud State on Saturday.
“It’s a tough battle, but hopefully they’ll be up for the challenge,” Flint said.
