“Blue-collar” effort bolsters BU
By Al Daniel
In a most timely fashion, the Boston University Terriers progressed from their recent one-woman show in Jenn Wakefield while dropping that injudicious role into the gloves of Mercyhurst’s Meghan Agosta.
Wakefield, BU’s top gun, charged up her third two-goal game in the last four outings, but this time reaped a little more contributions from her teammates –fellow otherworldly sizzler Marie-Philip Poulin and sophomore Jill Cardella. Conversely, Agosta, the Lakers’ and nation’s most potent puckslinger, was the only member of her Cyclopean strike force to tune the opposing mesh Saturday.
That made the jutting difference in a 4-2 Terrier triumph in the NCAA quarterfinal at Walter Brown Arena.
The win pole-vaults the steadily ascending BU program into its first Women’s Frozen Four in six years of existence.
“You can go back to almost any of the kids that started this program,” said head coach Brian Durocher. “There were a lot of character kids. Now we’ve added a whole bunch of character kids and the place has become a bit more hockey-attractive, which has brought even better players here.
“But we have to be a blue-collar team. I believe this game is a blue-collar game, and today you saw it firsthand. Mercyhurst had an eight or 10-shot advantage (32-22), but we had people blocking shots, diving in front of it. And it wasn’t the third-line checkers. It was the big-name players who were doing it.”
BU ultimately charged up more blocked shots (29) than it did stabs at Lakers’ goaltender Hillary Pattenden (22). Meanwhile, Agosta, the first female NCAA puckster with more than 300 career points, took more than twice as many shots on goal as any of her teammates, including half of their dozen in the closing frame.
But the Terriers, who decisively carried the play for only one period (the second) found one more seam, plus a brownie in the form of Wakefield’s empty netter with 11.6 seconds to spare. It was just enough to knock off the 2011 Frozen Four host after weathering an unfavorable forecast and two blizzards of rubber in their end.
“It’s nice,” said Cardella, recalling her team’s 4-1 loss to the Lakers in the 2010 quarterfinal. “Last year, no one really thought we had a chance and they didn’t really think we had a chance this year.
“They’re a fast-paced team and we knew they were going to get a lot of offense,” she added. “We knew they were going to give us some odd man rushes, so we just kept going at it and it worked out for us.”
The only stimulating looks BU got in the opening frame were one from Jenelle Kohanchuk in the ninth minute and two by Wakefield, the first of which she slipped home from right on Pattenden’s front porch to give her team the initial lead at 11:52.
Mercyhurst, on the other hand, managed to test opposing stopper Kerrin Sperry more times shorthanded than BU reached Pattenden on the period's only power play. While Melissa Lacroix served a two-minute sentence for an elbowing infraction at the 8:19 mark, the Terriers whiffed on four shot attempts while Sperry pushed away shorthanded shots from Vicki Bendus and Samantha Watt.
Later, with 3:57 left, Agosta delivered her first equalizer from the deep slot on her third shot of the game.
And so, at intermission, Wakefield had inserted six of the Terriers’ last seven goals, dating back to their final regular season series at Maine. That three-game-and-one-period stretch saw BU churn out its only losing streak of the season, slipping to the Black Bears in the regular season finale and conceding last weekend’s Hockey East semifinal to Northeastern.
“We have to have a second wave behind Jenn,” said Durocher. “I still think a lot of our offense comes from our six defenders who pass the puck well, shoot the puck well, make plays. But when you have a couple of premier players who can play on different lines, can help other people score, other people have to score.
“If we were going to go on today, someone else probably had to score.”
The Terriers did a much tidier job on the home front in the middle frame. Out of five registered stabs, the only stimulating look the Lakers got was from Jess Jones, a bid from the deeper portion of the near circle that Sperry tilted away. Most everything else was from above the slot or from without the face-off dots.
Meanwhile, BU pelted Pattenden with 13 pucks and put another one behind her, courtesy of Poulin at the 8:16 mark. It was the radiant rookie’s 23rd strike of the season and her first since Jan. 28 versus Connecticut, a week before sustaining her month-long hand ailment.
Agosta drew a 2-2 knot with 10:54 in the third, converting the Lakers’ only power play of the game with an assertive slapper from the high slot. But one play and one shot later at the other end, Cardella parked herself on Pattenden’s doorstep and tipped home Tara Watchorn’s straightaway, low-riding point shot for the 3-2 lead with 9:04 to spare.
“They didn’t give us much out there today, other than the little run there in the second period,” said Durocher. “We had to fight and show a lot of character in the end after they tied it to come back and get a good goal by Jill Cardella, and then close it out with four, five blocks and then Jenn Wakefield’s open net goal.”
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond The Dashers
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