Women’s Hockey: BU takes down Holy Cross 7-1 before Beanpot Championship

BOSTON—The Terriers returned to Walter Brown Arena on Saturday, February 9 to face the Holy Cross Crusaders after defeating the Northeastern Huskies in a 4-3 shootout in the first round of the Women’s Beanpot four days prior. 

During the opening period, the momentum escalated as both teams alternated power play opportunities. The Terriers held on strong, but the Crusaders (who have an overall record of 1-25-3) defenders and goaltender Julia Pelletier, who has a .878 save percentage and 4.83 goals against average, managed to keep the Terriers from burying what looked like promising shots. Nearing the end of the period, the Terriers had more than triple as many shots on goal as the Crusaders (11 to 3).

There was no score at the end of the first.

After a momentum-filled 20 minutes, the Terriers and Crusaders took the ice again. The “call and response” nature of power plays and penalty kills persisted. The Terriers failed to capitalize on their power play opportunity, the first of the period.

Terriers Sammy Davis was sent to the penalty box about four minutes into the period, shortly after which Carlie Magier netted the first goal for the Crusaders (assisted by Julie Matthias and Tori Messina), the first power play capitalization of the game. Courtney Correia responded about three minutes later to tie the score 1-1. Emma Wuthrich and Breanna Scarpaci assisted Correia’s goal (her fifth of the year).

“That was definitely a team effort,” Correia said.

A second effort from Kristina Schuler hit the back of the net less than a minute later. Deziray De Sousa and Mary Grace Kelley provided the assists.

A third attempt from Correia was the charm; she netted her second of the game in a flash to give the Terriers a 3-1 lead. Between both teams, they scored four goals in eight minutes by the halfway point of the period. The Terriers scored three over three minutes.

Schuler grabbed the fourth goal for the Terriers with just over a minute remaining in the second stanza to push the lead to three over the Crusaders.

The Terriers failed to capitalize on five power play opportunities but maintained a lead over the Crusaders over the second 20 minutes. They were ahead 4-1 after 40 minutes.

Five minutes into the final period, the Terriers goal leader, Sammy Davis, buried her 20th goal of the season with helpers from Alexandra Calderone and Jesse Compher. The Terriers held a 5-1 lead.

The game ended with a player-advantage for the Crusaders, during which they pulled Pelletier from the net. Compher got her 16th goal of the season on an empty net. Pelletier stepped back into the net, and Davis followed Compher’s lead to give the Terriers a 7-1 victory.

“I like the fact that we played the game properly,” said head coach Brian Durocher. “Us playing the game right is super important, we’ve done that for most of the year.

“I’m hoping maybe we can trade what we didn’t get today for a couple [power play goals] on Tuesday. But, the bottom line is that we moved the puck around well, we had opportunities from both units. On some days they don’t just go in… all you can really hang your hat on is play good defense, play smart, and goals will come,” Durocher said.

The Terriers will return to Cambridge on Tuesday, February 12 at 8pm to face the Harvard Crimson in the final round of the Beanpot.