A serendipitously discovered packet of magic beans could only grow so high for Boston University in Game 1 of the 2010 Beanpot tournament. While the Terriers did delete all of a 4-0 deficit within the final 28-and-a-half minutes of regulation, Northeastern reran its familiar shootout efficiency, winning the deciding one-on-one round, 2-0, just as they had against BU at Matthews Arena one week prior.
Even so, the 65-minute, 4-4 upshot is good enough for a tie on the Terriers’ national transcript (10-8-10). And when BU’s resilience is sized up against everything it had glowering down on its bench, there is every cause to believe that they are still capable of making ripples in the remainder of the Hockey East pennant race.
To sum up the adversity: first, on the very morning of their semifinal date with Northeastern, the campus-based radio station WTBU confirmed that slick sophomore Jenelle Kohanchuk is likely out for the remainder of the season with a dislocated thumb. Gone with Kohanchuk are a team-leading 100 shots on net and what had at least started the day as a team-best 12 goals –including five power play strikes- in 23 games.
The timing of that rancid revelation was as if the Terriers’ once-chemically reactive offense were not already in its worst collective slump of the season. By Tuesday’s first intermission, BU had gone for a cumulative 99 minutes and 34 seconds without a goal.
Worse still, they were trailing the Huskies, 3-0, were outshot, 16-7, and trailed substantially in terms of attempted stabs, 25-10. Four of those shots came in one big power play flurry late in the period, but all for naught (with all due credit, of course, to Northeastern’s nominal backup goalie, Leah Sulyma).
And to commence the second period, head coach Brian Durocher felt compelled to fork out senior goaltender Melissa Haber for the first time since she took a seven-goal lashing via mighty Clarkson on October 24. In her place fell freshman Alissa Fromkin, putting in just her sixth appearance all season.
With Fromkin’s unscheduled Beanpot baptismal in place, the situation grew a tad worse before it turned around. With 2:35 gone in the middle frame, Brittany Esposito bumped the Huskies ahead, 4-0. And even with another power play awarded to them 67 seconds thereafter, the Terriers could only muster four shot attempts, all of which were blocked by NU skaters.
Finally, at the 5:09 mark –with still another 33 ticks to work with on the said power play- Jillian Kirchner, yet another leaned-on point-getter, was nailed with a five-minute major, coupled with a game misconduct, for hitting from behind.
But critically, the Huskies got squat on their all-you-can-score power play. And while at one point, NU commanded the shooting gallery, 21-9, that lead shriveled to 24-18 by the period’s end. Not to mention, BU halted its scoring drought when it was 111:05 old, hopping on the board via Holly Lorms with 11:31 gone in the second.
For all intents and purposes, the third period was BU’s Yang to NU’s Yin –minus the imbalance of ice shavings between the two attacking zones. Lauren Cherewyk and Laurel Koller connected at 2:58 and 3:31 respectively, amounting to a 4-3 differential and prompting a Northeastern timeout.
And not unlike the Huskies late in the first, the Terriers’ PK brigade earned its medal of grit after Koller was boxed a mere 20 ticks after her goal. Of the six shots Northeastern threw on its power play, one was handled by Fromkin, two directed wide, and three were blocked by one of Fromkin’s praetorian guards.
None, however, amounted to insurance for the Huskies, who lived to regret the power play power outage when senior Melissa Anderson –Kohanchuk’s successor atop the BU scoring charts- knotted things at 4-4 with 9:22 to spare in regulation.
All this being said, however, the shootout victors have just as much reason to boast in the department of perseverance. The Huskies have now won four of five meaningful shootouts this season, three of which have helped them make headway in the Hockey East standings, the latest of which puts their program in the Beanpot championship round for the first time since 2004.
And even before a would-be cakewalk deteriorated into drama, Northeastern saw a lot to smile about from its abundance of young guns, particularly Esposito (goal, assist) and linemate Rachel Llanes (goal, two assists, shootout goal).
Not to mention, they were lacking the input of Swiss starlets Florence Schelling and Julia Marty, both fixated strictly on the Olympics for the next three weeks.
But for the sake of salvaging the game even after the lead was gone, Sulyma offered enough of a reminder that, in 2007-08 she preceded Schelling as the Huskies’ No. 1 goalie and MVP. Only the hockey gods know what might have happened if Sulyma didn’t come through with those nine penalty killing saves through the first two periods.
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Host Harvard needed to unload a whopping 34 failed biscuits on Corinne Boyles before they finally scratched a 1-0 deficit on Boston College with 1:34 remaining in Tuesday night’s second period.
Two-way junior Liza Ryabkina buried the rebound of ex-Eagle Anna McDonald –who in 2007 had famously zapped the Crimson in triple-overtime the last time these programs met in the Beanpot semis- and Harvard would return for the closing frame with a blood-detecting, frenzy-seeking sharks’ mindset.
Ryabkina alone belted home three insurance tallies in the third period, which effort-wise was no different than the preceding 40 minutes, and paced her mates to a swift 5-0 triumph. Ultimately, the seasoned Crimson merely outlasted the youthful Eagles –the rookie stopper Boyles being the quintessence of their struggle- as nature would surely dictate.
By night’s end, Harvard had attempted 103 shots, dwarfing BC’s bushel of 27. Under the SOG heading, the Eagles gave Laura Bellamy a sparse and digestible 15 tests, whereas Boyles worked up the single-greatest sweat of her young career, repelling 46 of the 51 shots she faced.
The Eagles’ spirit was conspicuously shattered by the time the Crimson hurriedly layered on its first batch of insurance, Ryabkina and Josephine Pucci scoring on back-to-back shots between the 8:40 and 10:38 mark.
The puck could not even drop following Pucci’s goal before BC was flagged with a bench minor.
Lo and behold, Ryabkina would use that power play to stash her third goal on her game-high 11th SOG with 11:16 gone. And she would upgrade that to four goals on 12 swings at 14:09, but not before BC’s Andrea Green was exiled from the ice with a 10-minute misconduct.
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