Backcheck
Your final score Saturday out of Motown: Jenelle Kohanchuk 4, Wayne State 2.
Who better to break the Boston University Terriers’ out of their half-full habit of letting games spill into overtime than their professed pilot, who after topping the team charts as a rookie last year had but one goal to speak of through four games?
In a matter of a clean 60 minutes Saturday, one day after the Terriers and Warriors drew a 4-4 knot for BU’s third tie in four outings, Kohanchuk spiked her shooting success rate from 0.04 to 0.143, drilling four of 10 registered stabs past goaltender Lindsey Park to pace her mates to a 4-2 win, which improves them to 2-0-3 overall.
“Coming into this game, I was a little bit frustrated,” Kohanchuk admitted in a postgame spot on the BU athletics’ YouTube page. “I felt like I kind of had a monkey on my back, but my teammates just told me to relax…and everything just came naturally.”
At the close of the weekend’s action, Kohanchuk’s 35 shots on net are second in Hockey East, trailing only the 38 dealt by Boston College senior Allie Thunstrom. Her five goals give her a league-leading mean of precisely one tally per game.
More encouragingly, her effective game of catch-up Saturday knotted her with three teammates for a team-best five points. Still another five out of Terriers have at least one point to speak of as they have aggregated 17 goals for approximately 3.4 per game. Since drawing a 1-1 knot with Ohio State on opening night, BU has nailed four goals –no more, no less- every night.
Naturally, that all but proves that the property of goaltenders Melissa Haber and Alissa Fromkin is what still needs a little sprucing up. The rookie Fromkin got her first go-around on Friday after Haber had rolled up an iffy 1-0-2 transcript coupled with eight goals against and a save percentage of .904.
But Fromkin (18 saves on 22 shots faced) held up long enough on Friday for her mates to delete a 4-2 deficit in the third period and keep the goose-egg in their “L” column intact. And a retooled Haber reemerged Saturday to backstop BU’s first regulation win.
***
We have most every coach on record professing widespread parity both within and without Hockey East boundaries this season, so no one can really gripe over the plain lack of consistency and abundance of limbo every team seemed to display this week. Not a single Hockey East tenant swept their week’s action nor did anybody absorb more than one defeat.
Between Northeastern’s exhilarating 3-2 tipover of Boston College on Tuesday and New Hampshire’s 6-1 annihilation of Niagara on Sunday, each team’s weekly log read as follows:
Boston College: 1-1-1
Boston University: 1-0-1
Connecticut: 1-1-0
Maine: 0-1-0
New Hampshire: 1-0-1
Northeastern: 1-1-0
Providence: 1-1-0
Vermont: 1-1-0
“There are no easy games,” said Providence coach Bob Deraney after his team coughed up a 3-1 decision versus a stealthy sophomore Syracuse program Saturday. “Even new teams are not really new teams because we don’t have a transfer rule. So kids can go from one program to another and make a second-year program really good. They’ve got some great players. (Julia) Marty’s a good player, (Talia) Menard’s a good player, and (Lucy) Schoedel has some experience in the net. There’s a lot of parity, and that’s why I’m really excited about our sport.”
Even so, there were enough head-scratchers to draw blood and warrant a four-minute double-minor. Connecticut went from escaping the Orange crush, 3-2, on Friday to throwing out a season-high 34 shots on net in a 5-2 loss to Colgate on Saturday. Providence swapped those two opponents with the Huskies and preceded the aforementioned falter –their first regulation loss on the year- with a thorough 4-1 cleansing of Colgate on Friday.
Vermont practically traded their green-and-gold uniforms with those of visiting Clarkson, bowing in submission for a 4-0 final on Friday, then turning around to slap the streaking Golden Knights, 4-1, the better part of their damage inflicted in a decisive second period.
Regal New Hampshire hit a little speedbump of its own in Part I of a home series with Niagara, spilling a 3-0 lead they had charged up in the first and settling for a 3-3 draw, their first non-win so far.
BC? Overall, they currently boast a broader collection of ties than wins and losses combined (1-2-4). A shootout triumph over Maine on Sunday aside, the Conte Forum masses watched as their team repeatedly came only within tasting distance of building on their first win the week prior. To curtain a five-game homestand, the Eagles lost to Northeastern, 3-2, rallied late to knot Quinnipiac, 1-1, and duplicated that score with the Black Bears.
Notably, though, Katie King’s pupils now have a full two weeks free from game action until they shuffle downtown to visit BU on Monday, November 2.
Forecheck
One of the nation’s more piquant interleague rivalries shall rekindle on Saturday when UNH drops in on St. Lawrence. Since their first of back-to-back NCAA tournament encounters in 2007, the Cats are 3-2-0 versus the Saints and 1-2-0 when visiting Appleton Arena.
But this is not to belittle the Wildcats’ Friday excursion to Clarkson or the fact that Boston University will also be around to tangle with the two upstate New York powerhouses. All four programs concerned have, after all, sculpted themselves a healthy presence in the polls through this opening month of the season.
Weekly scoreboard
Tuesday, October 13
Northeastern 3, Boston College 2
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbc_noe1.o13
http://bceagles.cstv.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101309aaa.html
http://gonu.com/whockey/2010/wh10-04.shtml
Friday, October 16
Boston College 1, Quinnipiac 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbc_qui1.o16
http://bceagles.cstv.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101609aaa.html
Boston University 4, Wayne State 4
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbu_wsu1.o16
http://www.goterriers.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101609aaa.html
Connecticut 3, Syracuse 2
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wconsyr1.o16
http://www.uconnhuskies.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101609aaa.html
Providence 4, Colgate 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wclgprv1.o16
http://www.friars.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101609aab.html
Clarkson 4, Vermont 0
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wclkver1.o16
http://www.uvm.edu/~sportspr/womens_hockey/?Page=News&storyID=15225
Saturday, October 17
New Hampshire 3, Niagara 3
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wniaunh1.o17
http://www.unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2009-10/releases/2009101773hj2c
Quinnipiac 1, Northeastern 0
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wnoequi1.o17
http://gonu.com/whockey/2010/wh10-05.shtml
Vermont 4, Clarkson 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wclkver1.o17
http://www.uvm.edu/~sportspr/womens_hockey/?Page=News&storyID=15229
Connecticut 5, Colgate 2
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wclgcon1.o17
http://www.uconnhuskies.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101709aaa.html
Syracuse 3, Providence 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wprvsyr1.o17
http://www.friars.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101709aab.html
Boston University 4, Wayne State 2
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbu_wsu1.o17
http://www.goterriers.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101709aac.html
Sunday, October 18
Boston College 2, Maine 1 (SO)
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wbc_mne1.o18
http://bceagles.cstv.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101809aab.html
http://goblackbears.cstv.com/sports/w-hockey/recaps/101809aaa.html
New Hampshire 6, Niagara 1
http://www.collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wniaunh1.o18
http://www.unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2009-10/releases/20091018gmpx6n
Upcoming schedule
Friday, October 23:
Connecticut at Brown 7:00 pm
Princeton at Vermont 7:00 pm
Bemidji State at Northeastern 7:00 pm
New Hampshire at Clarkson 7:00 pm
Boston University at St. Lawrence 7:00 pm
Yale at Providence 7:00 pm
Robert Morris at Maine 7:00 pm
Saturday, October 24:
Robert Morris at Maine 2:00 pm
New Hampshire at St. Lawrence 3:00 pm
Boston University at Clarkson 3:00 pm
Bemidji State at Northeastern 3:00 pm
Princeton at Vermont 4:00 pm
Union at Connecticut 7:00 pm
Sunday, October 25:
Brown at Providence 2:00 pm
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