When queried on her team’s upcoming NCAA quarterfinal tilt, Boston College head coach Katie King kept her comments as plain as the fraternal maroon-and-gold color schemes of her Eagles and the opposing Minnesota Gophers.
“It’s interesting, because we haven’t seen any teams from the WCHA this year, so we don’t know much about them,” said King. “We do know they’re a good hockey team and we think it’ll be a great game on Saturday. Overall, I think our two teams match up well.”
All of this weekend’s Elite Eight assignments reek of a rematch addiction amongst the NCAA Selection Committee. Each matchup constitutes either that of a previous national tourney tilt from within the last two seasons or of a conference playoff clash from within the last week.
Of the four, the BC-Minnesota card is the stalest, but the memories should be just ripe enough for the junior and senior classes. In their most recent national dance, two seasons ago, the Eagles saw a valiant comeback sputter –if nothing else, for lack of any more time- as the Gophers got away with a 4-3 decision at “The U’s” Ridder Arena.
For those Eagles, it was really a case of falling right back into old patterns. Six days prior to their Twin Cities excursion, they had settled for silver in the Hockey East championship game with a 2-1 loss to New Hampshire, the score finalized when they could only saw a long-standing 2-0 deficit in half late in the third period. Moments after the horn, King approached the podium and emphatically exhaled “If we only had 20 more minutes.”
Similarly, the next week, the Gophers sculpted a 4-1 lead all within one 11-shot sugar rush in the first period. But afterwards, then-junior Eagles’ goaltender Molly Schaus weathered a 17-shot blizzard and collaborated with Kelli Stack to assist on then-rookie Mary Restuccia’s second goal of the game to make it 4-2 after two. BC would then control the third period shooting gallery, 7-4, but only closed the gap to 4-3.
Twenty-four months after the fact, there are but nine active holdovers on the BC bench and only seven are likely to suit up on Saturday, based on the lineups deployed last weekend. But several of those returnees figured prominently into that bout, particularly Restuccia, Schaus, and Stack.
So, is there a Carl Spackler-esque incentive to dish out some eye-for-eye justice on the Gophers when they crawl into Conte Forum?
“The older players do remember that game and they know how hard we worked to get to that point,” King acknowledged. “They’ve put that much and more in this year. We’re very excited to have Minnesota coming here this year.”
Stack reaches final three
As Stack tries to prolong her on-ice BC tenure for one more week, she is already guaranteed a ticket to the Frozen Four weekend as she stands among the three finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Award, opposite Mercyhurst’s Meghan Agosta and Wisconsin’s Meghan Duggan.
The Eagles’ record-breaking striker sets yet another precedent for her program by becoming BC’s first Top 3 finalist for the nation’s 14-year-old MVP award.
“She’s worked extremely hard to get to where she is, and she deserves it,” said King. “She has done a lot for our program with Molly Schaus, and for her to be honored in this way is fitting.”
This year’s Kazmaier victor will be formally announced and anointed next Saturday, March 19, at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie.
BU’s Poulin reloading
Marie-Philip Poulin, Boston University’s radiant rookie, will enter Saturday’s quarterfinal tilt with Mercyhurst without having tuned the opposing mesh in 43 days.
Since sustaining a hand injury at New Hampshire Feb. 5, Poulin returned to game action and assumed the starting pivot position in the Hockey East semifinals. She mustered four shots on goal in the 4-2 loss to Northeastern, then promptly plunged into another six days of strength training and practice to keep revitalizing her perilous paws, which have composed 22 goals and 22 assists in 25 college games this season.
“I don’t think there’s any question that when you’re down for three weeks, lack of strength falls into the recovery mode,” said Terriers’ head coach Brian Durocher. “Each day, when you’re doing some of the exercises and the rehab, you’re gaining strength, and now she’s going to be six days further into her rehab, six days further into playing.
“That should help her with shooting the puck, where last weekend it wasn’t one of her strengths. Six days later, this should make her 20, 25, or 30 percent better as far as the strength goes in her hand.”
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond The Dashers
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