By Jared Sugerman
Though the Northeastern women’s hockey team put up a fight, No. 8 UConn established itself as the top dog with a 5-3 win in Saturday’s battle of the Huskies at Matthews Arena.
Northeastern is now 0-5-1 overall, with an 0-1 Hockey East record. With the win, UConn improved to 7-1 overall and 2-0 in conference play.
Off to a rough beginning to the season, Northeastern looked at its match-up with UConn as a chance for a fresh start since both teams are Hockey East competitors.
“We were talking about that all throughout practice this whole week. The rest of the season does matter, but this is really the start of our season right now because it’s our league,” said senior captain Nikki Petrich.
Northeastern came out strong, taking a 1-0 lead just 59 seconds after the opening faceoff. Junior defenseman Erin Reil set up sophomore defenseman Lindsay Berman for her second goal of the year. Then UConn’s Dominique Thibault evened the score five minutes into the first period, beating freshman goalie Leah Sulyma.
UConn took the lead on an unassisted goal by Briana Uliasz at 7:26 minutes into the second period, and it did not look back from there.
“I predicted that the puck was going to go wide,” Sulyma said. “It was unexpected, but I should have had that. I kind of think it affected the other team and gave them a little bit more momentum going into the rest of the game.”
Just 1:12 later, UConn’s Nicole Tritter scored a power-play goal to make it 3-1. Freshman forward Kristi Kehoe responded with a power-play tally of her own, to cut the deficit to one at 10:26 minutes of the second frame. However, UConn regained its two-goal advantage when Jody Sydor scored with just 5.3 seconds remaining in the period.
The teams traded goals once more toward the end of the third period. Thibault scored a short-handed goal at 18:53, her second of the game and eighth of the season, and Petrich added her sixth of the year at 19:54 to make it 5-3 UConn.
Sulyma turned aside 22 of the 27 shots that came her way, while UConn netminder Brittany Wilson stopped 29 of Northeastern’s 32 attempts.
“That’s a team that just beat Providence 5-0, and beat St. Lawrence, who’s No. 5 in the nation. [UConn is] ranked eighth in the nation right now, and we just lost by two goals,” said head coach Laura Schuler, who was pleased with the team’s play.
Northeastern will hit the road in search of its first win of the season. The Huskies will play Rensselaer in Troy, N.Y., Nov. 3, and Providence Nov. 6, both at 7 p.m. They will return to Matthews Arena for a two-game series with Wayne State Nov. 10 and Nov. 11.
