By Tonie Snyder
In one of the biggest games of the season, the 10th-ranked field hockey team turned back American East Conference rival Boston University in a 1-0 overtime win Friday. Junior forward Mari Creatini scored scored the winning goal to set the new single season scoring record at 25. Two days later, she added two more goals and broke the school’s single season point record with 67 in a 8-0 win over Albany.
The Terriers controlled the momentum in the overtime frame, starting with four shots on goal right away; a reversal from what had been happening all day. The Huskies quickly took control back, but couldn’t convert on five corner opportunities. With 3:59 left in the extra frame, the last corner was called and when the Terriers cleared it, it seemed the game was destined for double overtime.
With 1:21 left in the game, Webber brought the ball down the wing and slipped a pass to Creatini.
“I knew that I either had to find a foot to draw a corner or I had to find a person,” said Webber. “I saw Mari and just passed it to her. We practice it all the time.”
Creatini, who has six game winning goals this year, broke the record previously set by Keri Bettenhauser and Kelly Wilk in 1990 and 1997. Creatini has led the nation is points (67), goals (27), points per game (3.48), and goals per game (1.42), for the past six weeks. She has also had five hat tricks this season.
For all the hard work and skill that led the Huskies to victory, the Creatini-Webber connection made it look easy.
“Sara just brought it down the wing,” said Creatini. “She didn’t have a shot and I was open. So, she passed it to me and I just took it. All I could think was, ‘Thank God it’s [overtime] over.'”
The Huskies normally capitalize on penalty corners, so with three in the first half on BU, and eight in total, it was surprising to see regulation play end scoreless.
“They are a good defensive team. They are very patient,” said NU coach Cheryl Murtagh. “We needed to pull them out of the zone. I think that we were forcing the corners a bit but they were tough to get by.”
The BU defense may have been patient enough to stop the Northeastern corners, but it was clear that the NU offense dominated in the second half with four shots on goal as opposed to only one for BU.
“We just kept to our game,” Murtagh said. “We knew BU had a good defense so we just kept passing the ball.”
Another factor to Friday’s dramatic finish were two goals that were called back in the first half that would have gone to NU. One was a shot by Webber that sailed too high and was whistled for a dangerous play, the other was a call in the circle on Whitney Shean.
After the game Creatini focused more on the win than her record-setting day.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it to tell you the truth,” she said. “It was more important to me to win an American East Conference game.”
On Sunday, NU trounced an overmatched Great Danes squad on a senior day that saw all three senior tri-captains, Leigh Shea, Sara Webber and Melissa Rowell score goals in their last home game.
Sophomore Jay Quinn also had a pair of goals in Northeastern’s route of Albany. Shean also came off the bench to notch her first varsity goal.
“I think it was a perfect senior day, those three have done a lot to step up the leadership all year, both on and off the field,” said Murtagh. “We knew [Shean] was a scorer, hopefully that will open the door for her for the rest of the season.”
