By Gayle Simone
Northeastern advanced to the championship game of the Beanpot after a convincing 8-0 win over Boston University in the opening round at the Conte Forum at Boston College Tuesday night.
Rachel Bertram put NU on the scoreboard first when she rifled a one-timer past Terrier goalie Leah Schechter.
Crystal Rochon, Kathryn Sands, Melissa Wigmore, Jennifer Beaudoin and Stephanie Wood also tallied for the Huskies. Linda Desruisseaux, who dressed for her first game of the season, had two goals in the Huskies victory.
“I’ve never had a multipoint game before in my hockey career,” Desruisseaux said. “I was just looking forward to being out there with the team and to cheer with everyone from the bench.”
The Huskies will play Harvard in the championship game Tuesday night at 8 p.m. at Conte.
Before the Beanpot Tournament, the Huskies took three of four points from Connecticut in Hockey East action.
Freshman Amy Goodney scored with just 1:39 remaining in regulation to secure a point for the Huskies against Hockey East rival Connecticut Saturday night at Matthews Arena.
Trailing UConn late in the third, Rebecca Peters sent Marie Desrosiers up the ice with a pass from the defensive end. Desrosiers skated into the zone and slid the puck across the ice to Goodney for a one-timer that got past UConn goalie Shannon Murphy on the left side.
“I called out to Marie to let her know I was open,” Goodney said. “She made a great pass and I deflected it another way, so it trickled past the goalie.”
Neither team had a good scoring opportunity in overtime. UConn had the only shot in the extra frame.
After skating scoreless in the first two periods, UConn’s Sara Mahoney, a former NU player, scored just 56 seconds into the third. From close range Mahoney beat former teammate Chanda Gunn (18 saves) to give UConn the 1-0 lead, which they would hold for most of the period.
“Anyone could have gotten that goal. I didn’t see it,” Gunn said. “It wasn’t a goal scorer’s goal that she beat me with.”
Freshman Melissa Wigmore had a chance to tie the game four minutes later with a shorthanded breakaway, but Murphy (18 saves) was able to turn the shot away.
Although the Huskies skated away with a point, they were not happy with their play for most of the game.
“The whole first period we struggled in the defensive zone. We played slow and sloppy,” Goodney said. “I thought we only played good hockey the last 15 minutes of the third period.”
Woog thought the team’s effort was spottier than anything.
“We took a lot of penalties tonight. I feel like when we were playing five-on-five hockey we had some consistency,” Woog said. “But getting all those penalties and spending so much time on the penalty kill took away from our game and gave them the advantage.”
NU successfully killed off six penalties, extending their streak to 19-straight, but was unable to capitalize on their five power play opportunities.
The tie was the second game of the home-and-home series with UConn.
Gunn made 28 saves as the Huskies shut out Connecticut 3-0 Friday at the UConn Ice Arena in Storrs, Conn.
After facing pressure in their own zone, NU found the back of the net first when sophomore Rachel Bertram fired a one-timer past Murphy with just 13 seconds remaining in the opening period.
Gunn stopped three straight shots and the Huskies skated out of the zone. Desrosiers sent the puck into Connecticut’s end and Ashley Waggoner sent the puck to Bertram for her second goal of the season.
“The puck just came to me in the perfect spot,” Bertram said. “It just went in and didn’t even hit the goalie.”
Skating in a scoreless second, Desrosiers gave NU a 2-0 lead on a wrap-around goal at 6:33 from Amy Goodney. Theresa Ella sealed the victory with an empty-netter with 1:23 remaining in the game.
NU out shot UConn 41-28 in the tilt and both teams were scoreless on the man advantage (NU 0/8 and UConn 0/7).
Taking three points from UConn puts NU (11 points) tied for second place with Maine in Hockey East. The Huskies also extended their unbeaten streak to seven games. Northeastern is now 4-3-3 in Hockey East and 10-5-7 overall on the season.
NU will travel to New Hampshire Friday night to face the Wildcats in another Hockey East game.
