By Peter Conroy
With the regular season completed, the scoreboard reads: Northeastern field hockey 22, America East opponents 0.
The ninth-ranked Huskies shut out all six of their league rivals to earn their third straight league crown and the number one seed in the upcoming America East tournament, which will begin Friday at 1 p.m. when the Huskies square off with number four seed Boston University at Sweeney Field.
On Saturday, the Huskies snuck past University of New Hampshire on the road, posting a 1-0 victory. Mari Creatini scored the lone goal with less than four minutes left to play on a penalty stroke. The stroke was awarded after Creatini’s legs were cut out from under her by Wildcats’ goalie Christine Buckley as she broke in alone.
Creatini buried the free shot into the lower left hand corner of the goal, adding to her NU single season records of 28 goals and 69 points. The junior forward leads the country in both of the previous categories, as well as points per game (3.45) and goals per game (1.40).
Creatini was honored as College Sports Television’s Student-Athlete of the Week, and was featured in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd” section.
America East Player of the Week Diana Nelson made five saves and the Northeastern defense earned their fourth straight shutout, and eighth of the season.
“We have all age groups back there [on defense], freshmen [Megan Troxel], sophomore [Lauren Edelmeier], junior [Alli Bolster] and senior [Melissa Rowell],” said coach Cheryl Murtagh. “They’ve come together really well, not only on defense, but breaking the ball out of the zone.”
For the second straight game, Northeastern had trouble converting on penalty corners, going 0-for-14 against UNH. The Huskies are a combined 0-for-39 on penalty corners against Maine, BU and UNH, the teams that made the AE the the teams that made the AE tournament.
“BU is always strong, they’re our cross-town rivals,” said Rowell of her squad’s first round opponent. “They always come ready to play.”
Northeastern held at 13-2 penalty corner advantage over BU in the first meeting between the teams, a stat that usually tells who dominated play, but needed to go into overtime before putting the Terriers away 1-0.
