By Caroline Ingram, news staff
The Northeastern women’s hockey team faced off against the University of Maine in a closely contested match on Friday afternoon at Matthews Arena. The Huskies entered the game as the ninth-ranked team in the nation with the Maine Black Bears not far behind, ranked at number 10. The two teams last met in last season’s Hockey East semifinal game March 3, with the Huskies getting the 2-1 victory.
Second-year goalie Aerin Frankel started in net for the Huskies. Frankel holds a stellar career record against the Black Bears, including a 1.01 goals against average and a .967 save percentage.
In the first period of action, Maine had a quality chance when Tereza Vanisova came barreling into the offensive zone one-on-one with NU’s fourth-year defender Maddie Hartman. Vanisova’s initial shot was turned away by Frankel between the pipes for NU. The rebound spilled out into the crease and Vanisova just missed the wide open net with Frankel on her back and the net dislodged.
“I thought our start today was better [than it had been in previous games], but I still thought that during the first period we were a little bit slow and some kids weren’t moving their feet. I addressed that during one of the TV timeouts and I felt that as the period went on we got better,” said head coach Dave Flint.
The Huskies did get better and found the back of the net with a rebound goal by second-year defenseman Brooke Hobson after a shot by second-year forward Veronika Pettey with 2:20 to go in the first period.
NU headed to the locker room with the 1-0 advantage, outshooting the Black Bears by an 8-4 margin.
In the second period, second-year defender Skylar Fontaine made a nice defensive play in the early going, getting her stick in the passing lane and swatting away the puck as she faced a 2-on-1 rush by Maine.
Later in the period, fourth-year forward Kasidy Anderson skated up the ice with possession. First-year forward Alina Mueller trailed slightly behind her on the other side of the ice. With Mueller racing along the boards, Anderson looked to her for a one-time feed, but the pass was intercepted by Maine’s defense.
In the last minutes of the period, third-year forward Tori Sullivan found the back of the net for her first goal of the season to put the Huskies up 2-0. Sullivan skated up the right-hand side of the ice with the puck and first-year forward Chloe Aurard parallel to her. She elected to shoot, ripping a high shot that beat Maine’s goalie Carly Jackson glove-side.
“We were keeping it simple offensively and just focusing on getting shots through. It’s good to see different people on the scoresheet. I still think we need to shoot the puck more, as there are times when we tried to make one too many passes instead of getting the shot off,” Flint said.
In the final period of play, the game went back-and-forth in the early going, with Frankel making some big saves to keep the score unchanged at 2-0 in favor of the Huskies.
“[Frankel] has been awesome- she has been rock solid for us. She’s got a great track record against this Maine team. She had a big third period for us there, and that’s what we need. We need consistency in net, and Aerin and Brittany [Bugalski} definitely give us that,” Flint said.
About halfway through the frame, Anderson scored her fifth goal of the season, this time on the power play, to stretch the NU lead to three goals.
The Huskies set up shop down in the Black Bears’ defensive zone on the man advantage, with good puck movement along the blue line between Mueller and first-year defender Gillian Foote. Foote got the puck at the top of the zone and slid it over to second-year defender Brooke Hobson at the left point. Hobson fired a high shot which got through the net-front traffic and was tipped by Anderson for the score.
“I think we got better today. We played better than we had our last time around,” Flint said. “I’ve been seeing improvement each game which is obviously nice to see.”
