By Jared Sugerman
The women’s hockey team played an exhibition game Saturday at Matthews Arena and defeated the Mississauga Jr. Chiefs 3-1.
The starting trio of junior forward Cassie Sperry, senior captain and forward Nikki Petrich and freshman forward Kristi Kehoe played a prominent role in the Huskies’ offensive attack Saturday afternoon. Sperry tallied two goals, Petrich notched a goal and an assist and Kehoe added helpers on all three Northeastern goals.
That line will need to continue its strong play and receive help from the other three lines for Northeastern to get off to a fast start in the regular season.
“We are definitely going to be expecting a very big step and improvement in all the next teams we’re going to be playing. They’re going to be so much better,” Sperry said.
Huskies’ head coach Laura Schuler will also need to decide on a starting goalie before the team takes the ice at Ridder Arena.
Senior Sarah Belliveau started in net for the Huskies and stopped all eight shots that came her way. However, after playing the first 30:17, Belliveau was replaced by freshman Leah Sulyma, who stopped three of the four shots she faced.
“I think both goalies did tremendous,” Schuler said. “I think it’s still up in the air between those two.”
Neither was really tested though, as the Huskies allowed 12 Mississauga shots to reach the net during the game. Meanwhile, Northeastern peppered the Mississauga goal with 42 shots, 39 of which were turned aside by Jr. Chiefs goaltender Cassandra McNichol. McNichol made a number of acrobatic stops, one of which was a tumbling glove save that kept sophomore forward Chelsey Jones and the Huskies from scoring late in the second period.
Sperry was able to beat McNichol at 6:33 of the opening period to put Northeastern on the board first. Fifty six seconds later Petrich made it 2-0. Mississauga’s Jessica Zerafa cut the lead in half by beating Sulyma low to the glove side at 12:19 in the second period. Sperry closed out the scoring just 26 seconds into the third period, giving the Huskies a two goal lead that they would not relinquish.
The final buzzer sounded at 4:20 p.m., though it likely would have occurred much earlier if not for the absence of officials that delayed the start of the game.
“Unfortunately, the refs didn’t show up and that’s definitely not characteristic of how things are run around here,” Schuler said. “Hockey East is responsible for assigning the refs and they had it on their schedule that we were playing today, so I’m not too sure what happened and how that kind of fell through.”
Northeastern assistant coach Chanda Gunn lent a helping hand by handling the linesman duties.
“I’ve never done the two-man system,” Gunn said. “I’ve never done a college game. It was nothing like I’ve ever done.”
The Huskies will travel to Minnesota for the Nike Bauer Women’s Classic. They will face off against tournament host Minnesota in their home opener Oct. 5 at 7 p.m., followed by a clash between the Huskies and North Dakota Oct. 6 at 5 p.m.
Northeastern starts regular season play Oct. 20 and 21 with a pair of games against Niagara at 2 p.m. at Matthews Arena. The two teams split the weekend last season 1-1, with a Northeastern 3-0 win Nov. 4 and a 6-3 loss Nov. 5. Petrich scored once and added an assist and Belliveau recorded her first career shutout in the 3-0 win.
Northeastern’s first Hockey East game is at Providence Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. The Friars bested NU in both meetings last season with a 4-1 loss at Providence Oct. 18 and a 5-0 loss at Matthews Arena Jan. 20.
