Terriers max out Mazzotta, Cornell
By Al Daniel
As Cornell University head coach Doug Derraugh was apt to acknowledge, it was hardly an uncharted undertaking for goaltender Amanda Mazzotta.
After all, Mazzotta had backstopped the Big Red to a surprise berth in last year’s NCAA championship game and toiled through a triple-overtime, 61-save dolphin show before blinking against the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs.
Still, leading up to Friday’s semifinal at Tullio Arena against the explosive Boston University, Mazzotta (27 saves) had faced no more than 26 shots in any of her previous 17 starts in the 2010-11 campaign. By the time the second buzzer rang, she had already dealt with 21, and she had already let three squeak through.
Yet another dishonor the nation’s goals-against average leader had not endured all year: three opposing strikes in 40 minutes.
The latter two of those fell 50 seconds apart as BU’s Jillian Kirchner and Jenelle Kohanchuk severed a 1-1 tie and made it 3-1. That differential ultimately morphed into a 4-1 Terrier triumph and gave the six-year-old BU program its first berth in the national championship game.
“They play four or five people around that net,” BU head coach Brian Durocher said of Mazzotta’s praetorian guards. “When we won face-offs in the first period, they weren’t charging out to the points, so our job was to get shots through there.
“I’m sure they blocked a zillion shots every game through the year, they take care of business in front of the net, and she’s a fantastic goaltender. But anytime you can get upwards of 30 shots in a game like this, it probably bodes well for your team. (It means that) territorially, you did a nice job.”
Derraugh, whose pupils savored an initial 1-0 lead via Karlee Overguard for 5:08 early in the first, was less fazed by Mazzotta’s slightly elevated workload than he was by a comparative lack of testing against Terriers’ stopper Kerrin Sperry (14 saves). Out of 27 attempted shots in the first two periods, the Big Red landed only eight on net, including a mere two in the second.
As it happened, Sperry’s first test would be her only setback of the night. At 5:29 of the opening frame, amidst an odd-man rush, Cornell’s Rebecca Johnston made a crisp upward feed to Overguard, who cut in from the near alley to deposit the icebreaker.
A mere 32 seconds thereafter, Terriers’ defender Tara Watchorn was flagged for interference. But Sperry repelled the Red’s only power play shot, and upon returning to full strength, BU set up shop on Mazzotta’s property.
With 10:37 gone, the program’s two Canadian gold medalists, Marie-Philip Poulin and Catherine Ward, collaborated on the equalizer. Ward, stationed at the straightaway point, one-timed Poulin’s pass from the far circle-top low and to the left of Mazzotta.
For most of the ride, BU’s salsa-based biscuits came in reasonably digestible spurts. But after Watchorn finished serving her second sentence of the night with 4:37 left in the middle frame, the Terriers followed a pattern of pelting Mazzotta and flustering the Cornell defense as it tried to skate out the rebound.
After three repetitions of this, Kirchner raked a rebound into the left slab of the cage for the 2-1 edge with 2:13 left till intermission.
One face-off, one rush, and one shot later, Jenn Wakefield made a forward pass to Kohanchuk, who spooned it top shelf.
A cross-checking penalty to Ward, called 61 seconds after Kohanchuk’s insurance strike, gave Cornell 84 seconds worth of a carry-over power play. But Sperry only faced one shot during that penalty killing segment, and it happened to be the Big Red’s second of two middle frame bids.
“I don’t think they wore her down,” Derraugh said of Mazzotta. “But obviously we didn’t want to give up that many shots. We wanted to get more than we did. When you get (outshot) 31-15, chances are you’re going to lose.”
Granted, the closing frame was closest in terms of the shooting gallery, with BU running up a 10-7 edge. But Sperry had an answer for everything and Mazzotta was not even present when Kohanchuk dished a lateral feed to her captain, Holly Lorms, for an empty netter with 2:40 to spare.
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