Boston College 3, Northeastern 1

Eagles outlast Huskies
Favored BC program claims first conference title
By Al Daniel

With 2:39 remaining in Sunday’s third period, her team clenching a 3-1 advantage for 11-plus minutes straight, Boston College coach Katie King saw her chance to simultaneously savor and properly execute a knockout punch when Northeastern’s Casie Fields took a defensive zone penalty for hitting after the whistle.

“I just wanted to make sure that I calmed the kids down a little bit, because I didn’t want them to be too excited about it,” said King, who cashed in on a Northeastern timeout at that point.

“I wanted to stick with our game plan, and I thought they did a really good job. You can get so hyped about a power play at that point and try to overdo it, and I thought they did a great job of getting the puck low, still getting some opportunities, sticking with our plan and taking care of that two minutes.

“I didn’t think it was over by any means, but you do get a little bit excited.”

With BC’s continued pressure on the other side of that break, the Huskies’ penalty killers would clear the puck only once and only briefly while the Eagles spent most of the time churning around the zone and threw two power play shots at goaltender Florence Schelling (32 saves).

And moments after returning to full strength and breaking the puck out once more within the final 20 seconds, upset-minded Northeastern could only listen to the dinning cheers of the Eagle faithful as BC stamped a 3-1 win for its first Women’s Hockey East playoff crown before 615 spectators at Walter Brown Arena.

“We knew it was going to be tough,” said King. “After an overtime game (a 3-2 semifinal win over Providence) yesterday, we knew we might be a little tired. But they pushed through and just worked extremely hard for 60 minutes to get the job done.”

Unlike the scrappy and shorthanded Huskies, the Eagles would only be symptomatic of a few early, fleeting bouts of fatigue. After posting each of the game’s first five shots on net, they sent the Huskies a written invitation to thaw out upon taking the game’s first penalty, a too-many-players infraction at 4:11.

Building upon that power play, during which they mustered three SOG, Northeastern soon pulled even in the shooting gallery and tuned the mesh first at the 8:00 mark. Casey Pickett flustered a routine breakout in the near alley of the BC zone, circumvented defenders Dru Burns and Meagan Mangene en route to the cage, and buried her third goal of the tournament.

But in another four minutes and 13 seconds, the Eagles repossessed the momentum and drew a 1-1 knot via Danielle Welch. Within seconds of the Huskies’ Rachel Llanes blocking Burns’ shot and clearing her zone, Welch absorbed a regrouping feed from Ashley Motherwell around the center face-off circle and cut into the high slot, where she sent a low rider home to the left of Schelling.

With 41.8 seconds to spare in the opening frame, BC converted its first power play to usurp the lead. While forwards Kelli Stack and Welch moved the puck around the near corner, defender Blake Bolden went out of her way to accept a diagonal feed and snap it over Schelling’s blocker from along the opposite post.

The Huskies’ long-arid power play squandered three opportunities to draw another knot in the middle frame. Carrying over a minute and 47 seconds from Burns’ holding-the-stick minor, they failed to utilize the fresh ice and the numerical advantage, taking only one shot from senior center Kristi Kehoe that went wide.

Later on, with Mary Restuccia off for bodychecking –an infraction that knocked Kehoe out of commission, no less- Katie MacSorley took a hitting-after-the-whistle minor when Eagles’ goalie Molly Schaus swallowed her slapper at 11:00. That negated the remaining 64 seconds of the NU advantage.

“The emotion can only take you so far,” said Huskies’ coach Dave Flint when asked about his team’s response to the loss of Kehoe.

Restuccia’s opponents bailed her out once again after she went off for interference at 13:25. As Stack tried to break free on an attempted shorthanded rush up the near lane, she drew a hooking call on Pickett at 14:48, creating a 37-second 4-on-4 segment.

“Both teams played hard for 60 minutes,” said Flint. “We battled as hard as we could. I think we just ran out of gas down the stretch and couldn’t mount a good attack there in the third.”

As it happened, Northeastern actually mustered an 11-10 shooting advantage in the third, but Schaus (24 saves) kept her cage locked and BC rookie Taylor Wasylk punched in the insurance with 14:09 to spare in the third period. While her linemates Restuccia and Melissa Bizzari exchanged the puck in the far end, she shuffled uncontested to the opposite side of the cage and tapped home Restuccia’s feed from the corner.

“Our kids did what we asked them to do,” said King. “They worked hard for 60 minutes and came out with a great win for our team, our program, and for everyone that supports BC.”

Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond The Dashers